It’s been some time since I saw ‘District 9’, it was in 2009 the cinema when it was released to be accurate, so there’s been distance.

I rewatched it a few nights back and it has really stuck with me.

Not just as a great film, but for many other reasons too.

What really hit me between the eyes was that directly after it finished, Amazon played a trailer for one of its very successful shows.

And I was struck by how that show looked exactly like so many other shows. Polished. Slick. Expensive looking. But I had no interest in watching it. Something was missing for me. Soul? Heart? Meaning? I don’t really know. What I do know is that show, and so many others kinda look like the real  deal, but somehow fall short.  

‘District 9’ on the other hand, felt raw, honest and it was coming from a filmmaker, Neill Blomkamp,  who clearly had something to say. And then, he and his team of cast and crew said it, on a writ large on science fiction canvas.

Here’s what I took away from it.

Visual Flare

The mockumentary feel, that then morphed into a more cinematic style, worked brilliantly. And South African-Canadian Bloomkamp leveraged the African aesthetic, light, landscape, people and culture brilliantly. While still relatively lower budget ($30m), every second felt real and essential. This is something that films with ten times the budget and fifteen years of technological development don’t manage. Why? I think quite simply, every shot felt like it could not have been done by anything other than a human with a camera. And then placing all of that in a place Hollywood would never intentially go to. Resisting the urge to perform impossible camera moves while inside invented worlds made the whole experience that more authentic and visceral.  

Performance and Script

There’s no doubt that Sharlto Copley who played Wikus Van De Merwem, the inept bureaucrat tasked with heading up the alien resettlement program, carried the film. Maybe not carried, as I don’t want to take anything away from Bloomkamp and his incredible team, but he certainly rose to the challenge. Funny, painful, honest, energetic and so much more. And he is in pretty much every scene too. What I particularly enjoyed was the way his character ended up in a buddy movie by act three, Wikus and the alien, Christopher and his child, running around like Mel Gibson and Danny Glover in Lethal Weapon, but in SA and with aliens. Awesome. The script is acerbic and funny, while also working the big genre strokes we want in this scale of movie.

Character Turning Point and Heart

Wikus Van De Merwe has a slow burn character reversal, from a xenophobically disliking, even hating the aliens, to eventually empathising and finding the courage to risk his own life for them. From an audience perspective, this is very satisfying and filled with both irony and pathos.  I do hope ‘Christopher’ did come back after three years – you have to see the film to know why. I would LOVE to see that conclusion. Can you find a similar pay off for the characters and audience at the end of your story? We do love to watch a character make the transition from caring only for themselves or ‘their own’, to expanding outward to care for those who are outside of their group, even to the point of self sacrifice. This is one central theme in many great stories and religions, of self sacrifice, and it usually plays very well. If only we could practice this with greater consistency and commitment in the real world.

It’s As Relevant Today As Ever

This is something that really struck me. We humans seem so unbelievably tribal, while simultaneously capable of great empathy when we see the individual in the ‘other’ group, and not just the group. It’s perhaps an age old trope, but it did land on me and felt so resonant of the whole ‘immigrant’ hysteria that is weaponized by politicians.

Make The Teaser Film

Neill made a short called ‘Alive In Joberg’ which acted as a very clear proof of concept. Just like the guys who made SAW did, this is a VERY clear short film with intent to sell the viewer on the feature. And it worked. It’s low res and poor quality but you can watch above.

Indie Film Is Where You CAN Do The Things That ‘Industry’ Won’t Let You Do

And then of course, once you have their attention BECAUSE you did something they would not let you do, you can spend your whole career fighting to get back to that place of creative freedom. At the very least if you are lucky enough to have that ‘break in’ movie, you can get good work and get paid. I would still advise living like a church mouse and invest wisely as success as a filmmaker is not about becoming indulgent on your visit to the Oasis, but by surviving the long  desert journeys between watering holes.

Chris Jones
Filmmaker, Author and Firewalk Instructor
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