Narrative - District 9

Fig 1.

District 9 (2009) Director: Neill Blomkamp

A gigantic malfunctioning space craft hovers over Johannesburg, South Africa. After it being there for sometime the authorities decide that it's time to investigate inside, and what they find are a hoard of aliens inside. Unable to leave Earth the aliens are house in a Township as refugees where they are left suffer the indecencies of poverty. The human population of Johannesburg start to get weary of their alien neighbours and an eviction notice starts to be served to the 2.5 million alien refugees to relocate them further away. Wikus Van De Merwe (Sharlto Copley) and employee of MNU (the private company to relocate the aliens) is head of the the operation is more interested in acquiring the aliens weapons technology for MNU and a bazaar twist of fate ends up helping the aliens for his own sake.

Fig 2.

The most striking way in which the story is told is how much it paralleled South Africa in the times of Apartheid. It's no coincidence that the makers of the film made it this way. They could have easily made the ship hover over New York or London, but would the story have been as poignant? No, not a chance. There is a real hatred of the aliens or "prawns" as they are referred to, which causes them to be segregated into the lowest living conditions much the same as the black community during aparthied were houses into townships that still exist today, "picking at the scab of apartheid in ways that must be akin to a battery-acid shower back home." (Timeout, 2009) It must have been hit home much harder to a South African audience.

Fig 3.

Bibliography

District 9, Timeout, 2009, [Online] available at http://www.timeout.com/film/chicago/reviews/87388/district_9.html [Accessed 28 September 2011]

Image Bibliography

Fig 1 . District 9, DVD cover, 2009, [photography] http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BMTM4OTI1OTM5NF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMzk5MTU1Mg@@._V1._SY317_CR0,0,214,317_.jpg

Fig 2 . District 9, Movie Still, 2009, [photography] http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Qawn60e4es/TREPEVR0DTI/AAAAAAAABFE/Sv6cXMhB7Sc/s1600/district-9-2.jpg

Fig 3 . District 9, Movie Still, 2009, [photography] http://cinesnark.files.wordpress.com/2010/06/district-9-sharlto-copley.jpg