District 9: best film of the year

Rich, Mon and I saw "District 9" this afternoon at the Vista Theater in Los Feliz- WOW. Fantastic film! Not only is it a totally engaging, thrilling sci-fi action movie with great special effects that support instead of distract attention from the story, there are huge undercurrents and subtexts to be found throughout. It shows, through the plot and events in the story, how a people's system of morality is undercut and subverted by two things, one, overwhelming financial imperative, and two, mobilization against an "other". This is demonstrated in black and white with very serious references to concentration camps, immigration and handling of refugees, "inferior" races utilized for genetic experiments as was done in WWII, etc.



The film involves a race of aliens that have stranded their ship floating over the South African city of Johannesburg. They were trapped inside, starving to death before humans were able to cut them out of it, and relocated them to a slum inside the city. At first they were fascinating, then a curiosity, a financial burden, and finally, unwanted scum refugees. They are cordoned off inside "District 9", which is a reference to District 6 in Cape Town history, where a number of different races were living together and had to be forcibly removed in order to fit in with South African apartheid logic. It is at the beginning of the film where the aliens (called "prawns" due to their resemblance to both roaches and lobsters) are being forcibly moved to a location farther away, and we are introduced to Wikus van der Merwe, the inept yet determined administrator in charge. The film unfolds from there, and I'll let you discover how our hero manages. Get ready for a rollercoaster ride that puts all of the summer's blockbuster special effects bonanzas to shame.