This summer, an underdog film crept its way to blockbuster status with a plot line that was unfamiliar and just unsettling enough to make its audience recognize similarities from the film to real life. “District 9,” in all its alien glory, was this summer’s surprise blockbuster and it kept audience members guessing until the very end.
The movie, based in South Africa, follows aliens that have descended from their ship which has been hovering above Johannesburg for over two decades starting in 1982. The story starts out as a peace-making effort from humans to aliens, and quickly turns into an apartheid analogy where humans have come to hate the aliens and force them to live in the slums of what is called district nine.
The “prawns,” as the aliens are called because of their crustacean-like appendages, have genetically-operated weapons that do not work in the hands of humans. It is the greed of the humans to gain access to these weapons that drives secret genetic experimentations on both species alike.
This documentary-style film crosses the ideas of human rights and national security, leaving the audience rooting against their own kind in favor of the extraterrestrial beings in this fight for what is morally just in a corrupt system. Loaded with special effects and impressive computer-generated characters, this is a story that is visually as well as intellectually stimulating.
“District 9” is one alien flick that did more than save this viewer from a few hours out in the hot sun; it opened my eyes to the ability to use supernatural ideas to explain unfortunate realities in our day-to-day world. Take the time to see this thought-provoking film and realize its greater purpose.
Spanish poet and philosopher George Santayana said, “Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it.” Obviously, the South African citizens in this film did not learn their history lesson.
Cassie Keyse is a journalism senior and Mustang Daily Arts editor.