Had the opportunity to see District 9 tonight, and this movie is as chock-full of metaphor Moby Dick. The persecution of the aliens by humans has obvious colorations with a lot of events taking place in the world today. Setting the movie in “Jo’burg” helps make those parallels more obvious. A population, once (and perhaps still) the victims of white persecutions have turned around directed their hatred at the aliens. They call them “prawns,” because of their appearance. Instead of coming to their defence, the people who are charged with caring for these people agree with the name. The prawns are kept in dirty hovels of their own making, and are subject to constant search and seizures. Like most minorities, they’re blamed for numerous social ills.
The movie takes place 20 years after their arrival, and they’re about to be herded from their refugee camp into a concentration camp, where their fate is left to the imagination. The MNU, a weapons manufacturer with dubious intent, is going into their restricted district canvasing door to door to force them to sign eviction notices. This part of the movie is shot in a documentary style. It’s raw, like the film that ends up on the cutting room floor. The protagonist often shoves the camera out of his face, demanding that they cut that certain scene. It’s doubly impressive when you see the aliens presented in this style. Oddly, the intentional slip-shod footage only helps to make them more realistic looking. They are impressive looking, to be certain, like things of flesh and blood instead of latex, or CGI.
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