It looks like Afrikaners (white South Africans) are coming to terms with their ugly legacy of oppression and bigotry. What's that have to do with a Sci-Fi thriller you ask? Well good Science Fiction always has a cleverly woven undercurrent of social commentary and District 9 did not disappoint here.
Set in Johannesburg (which itself is refreshing. Hollywood would let you believe that Aliens only invade NYC or Washington), District 9 is the story of Aliens who have shipwrecked - sort of - in South Africa 20 years ago and the survivors were housed in refugee camps which quickly became shanty town ghettos. Not unlike those in many South African city's where the blacks (or Bantu's as they were called) where banished after they finished working for their white employers during Apartheid. Not surprisingly, crime became an epidemic and rioting was commonplace.
This could easily have been the story of the ANC's fight for black freedom but instead of Africans we have Aliens, called "Prawns" because of their resemblance to said creatures and the derogatory connotation that the are bottom feeders (Blacks were referred to as "Kaffirs" which basically means "uneducated heathen"). And instead of Mandela or Biko we have "Christopher Johnson", a Prawn, who along with the help of a reluctantly sympathetic human (Donald Woods analogy?) fight to free his people and return them to their home planet.
Rife with cool gadgets and weaponry and shot in a documentary style, District 9 is a well crafted Science Fiction thriller that should please even the most ardent genre geek. Its gory as fuck too!
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