District 9

For the first time in many, many years, a film has engaged my feelings and my imagination with a world that inspires and challenges me to reconsider everything I love about science-fiction and genre storytelling. Like everything else that's turned my life upside down over the last decade, this film comes from South Africa.

At it's core, District 9 is the story of a man who's been sucked into the engine of fascism. His ignorance and comfort fuels a system that permits an elite group of people to build a long, fruitful future at the expense of an oppressed class - in this case a ship full of alien refugees. Like any oppressor, these MNU guys figure they have the "prawns" under their thumb.

Like any oppressed class, the prawns are by no means helpless. Weak and desperate, they certainly fear the MNU... but while some of them are cowering and appeasing the humans, others are making plans. As in most uprisings, these plans are about securing a future for the children.

Nobody's really communicating. Nobody understands the motives of the enemy. This is the story of our times.

In the end, it takes an unexpected, violent breach in this wall of assumptions to let the standoff between the prawns and the MNU find release and outcome. Our man in the system, through means I dare not reveal, is pulled into that breach and becomes the flashpoint, the catalyst, that turns the system on its head and brings hope for a peaceful outcome.

Because as it is, things are primed to get very, very bad for everyone.

Like all of us, Neill Blomkamp clearly grew up on Richard Donner and Paul Verhoeven movies. Like all of us, he clearly loved the cinematic realism and the performance aesthetics of the 70's movies that predated them. District 9 is rife with the awesome. In many ways, Neill Blomkamp has addressed the same issues that Paul Verhoeven himself raised in Starship Troopers.

At the same time, having been raised in a post-apartheid society, Neill imbues that story with all the intimacy and humanity of a photo album, rather than the dispassionate veneer of propaganda. Bringing that humanity to this story makes District 9 one of the most dangerous, hurtful, honest, and ultimately hopeful, inspiring, optimistic movies yet to come from our generation of filmmakers.

While District 9 is one of the first true science-fiction films of the decade, it's also much, much more. My recommendation is that you make sure to see this in theaters this week. On the one hand, original storytelling like District 9 needs to be supported. This is so much better than the films we've been getting, and so much more important.

On the other hand, any movie that bumps Moon and Brothers Bloom down on my favorite films of the year list... That's a film that has something to offer you. Give yourself a treat. If the emotional core of the story doesn't reach you - actually, you know what? It will. At the same time, so will the exploding bodies and power armor.

So will the hope.

In so many ways, Africa is the heart of today's world. With a new generation of filmmakers like Neill Blomkamp and Gavin Hood, that heart is finding a voice we can all relate to. Listen up, people.