District 9

I went to see “District 9” about a week ago and I can’t seem to get it out of my head. This post may veer a bit into spoiler territory so steer clear if you haven’t seen the movie.

“District 9” was the exact opposite movie of what I was expecting to see when I went to the theater. I had only seen one preview for the movie and heard that Peter Jackson (writer director of the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy) was attached so I decided I wanted to see it. I was expecting “Independence Day” made for a more mature audience and spent the first third of the movie wondering when the brash American expert was going to come to clean the mess up.

Only that expert never came, and once I stopped waiting for him/her I realized that the aliens in the movie were living in a concentration camp and that the nerdy guy we met in the beginning of the movie was actually our “hero”. That was shocking considering the many despicable (from our frame of reference) things we watched him do throughout the first 1/3 of the movie.

Also, once I stopped forcing my preconceived notions into the narrative what the movie “should” be I realized that Mr. Jackson’s vision was much more interesting than movie I was picturing in my head.

This is a movie that never really lets the audience get comfortable and forces the viewers to work on the puzzle of what is actually happening the entire time. As the story unfolds we find out that people, governments (shadow governments), and the aliens all have ulterior motives for the actions they pursue. The only person in the movie who starts out without any concealed plan is our “hero” and he is literally transformed through his childlike lack of awareness of the major players around him.

I loved that the aliens were not “cute”. I loved that they were not only a pain to deal with for the people and local government but also that they were simply destructive and not pleasant. I am not entirely sure as to what made the one alien who repairs “stuff” so different than the others, but I can’t wait to check out “District 10” and find out!