District 9 still achieves what only a few films of its kind manage to do

When I think of sci-fi films with aliens, the first things that spring to mind are always space survival thrillers like Alien and invasion actioners like Independence Day. Occasionally, film history has given us nicer visitors to Earth like Spielberg’s ET, but for the most part, contact with beings from distant planets is charged with a threatening otherness. And just when I thought I’d seen every possible alien film, Neill Blomkamp came around the corner in 2009 with his surprise hit District 9 and changed everything.

District 9 turns 15 – and is still as revolutionary science fiction today as it was back then

District 9 begins as a found-footage sci-fi film that turns into a Everyday life with aliens introduces: News snippets and documentary footage show a world in which an alien species “dropped anchor” over South Africa in 1982. Decades later, the silhouette of a massive UFO still dominates the Johannesburg skyline and the insect-like aliens live in their own slum: District 9.

There is no question of an invasion here and although the aliens, disparagingly referred to as “shrimps” because of their appearance, have considerable weapons that only they can use, they seem no greater threat to humanity As an unwelcome phenomenon, the refugee camp, which includes 1.8 million aliens, is now to be relocated to a new camp, District 10.

Neill Blomkamp’s film was also Fresh science fiction and political commentaryThe alien ghetto shown here was an unmistakable allusion to South Africa’s Cape Town resettlement in the 1970s, where black residents were expelled from the “white zone” of the real District Six during apartheid. In the sci-fi thriller, however, the new racial segregation takes place between humans and non-humans.

The financial success District 9 was safe not only because of the sponsorship of producer Peter Jackson (The Lord of the Rings), but also because of the unusual premise of its story. According to Box Office Mojo, the sci-fi hit grossed $210 million worldwide on a budget of $30 million. For me, however, what made the film one of the best sci-fi films was that it re-evaluated my entire perception of alien films in its 112-minute running time.

Aliens vs. humans: District 9 shifts the sci-fi perspective

Due to their strange shellfish appearance and the strange clicking sounds of their language, the aliens in District 9 are met with disgust and rejection by their human neighbors. ‘Why would you Treating inhuman things humanely‘ is an unspoken question. Even though there are rules for their proper treatment, very few people follow them. Hatcheries are burned down and shrimp babies are shot.

Also entering the stage is bureaucratic stallion Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley), whose ego has been enormously inflated by his promotion to relocation supervisor for the company MNU (Multinational United). He perfectly demonstrates with his demeanor that how unbearable the people in District 9 and I hated him from the first minute. Alien films actually taught me to be on the side of the earth’s population, but with a representative like Wikus, that’s difficult. No matter how ugly the ‘opponents’ seem: the danger posed by the aliens remains a barely proven claim. They just want to live and are thus seen as underdogs to be cheered on.

District 9 also chooses a clever way to switch roles between oppressors and oppressed on the image level: the actions of the human side are sober documentary style a camera crew. The alien Christopher and his son CJ, on the other hand, are almost imperceptibly given the more emotional feature film recordings when they try to keep their invention, which they have worked on for 20 years, away from the evacuation squad.

But things only get really interesting when Wikus, the jerk, is infected with an alien liquid and begins to change. Then documentary and feature film images begin to merge and the Perspectives become blurred.

One of the greatest achievements of District 9 is that it ultimately makes me feel genuine compassion for the initially despised Wikus. The more alien he becomes, the more sympathetic he is. As his transformation into disgust increases, he discovers his selflessness (and leaves the documentary perspective). This goes so far that he finally even risks his life for his alien friend. A decision that is no longer motivated by his hope of being transformed back. In contrast, the human staff degenerates into profiteers who cruelly experiment on other living beings in order to make their alien weapons usable for themselves.

District 9 turns its audience into aliens

Neill Blomkamp made District 9 15 years ago, a science fiction film that Humans become the enemy on their own planet Repulsed by the inhumanity of humans, I have to ask myself in the best Blade Runner manner whether the aliens in the end “more human than human” are. So my own species becomes aliens, while I take the side of the troubled interstellar visitors. I no longer want to equate myself with invaders of my own morality.

Of course, District 9 also has plenty of action, shootings, futuristic technology, robot suits and UFOs to offer. This is nothing new in the sci-fi genre, but Blomkamp puts it in a new context in which it is subordinated to the emotional as an accessory. Because the biggest action takes place inside mewhen I watch the film over and over again to be transformed from human to alien.

District 9 opens up an unpleasant view of humanity, shows the earth’s inhabitants as earthly aggressors and feels particularly through its social allegory uncomfortable truthful It is a film that skillfully shifts my sympathies in order to find compassion in tentacles, claws and yellow eyes on the side of the reformed main character. It is a sci-fi work that has lost none of its impact even 15 years later.

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