D9

(or When I Took My Mother to the Movie)

I bought tickets for District 9 as usual on Tuesday before my brother told me that he was going to Penang for work. Everybody else already had plans, so came Thursday evening I went to the cinema with my mother.

“Cerita apa kita nak tengok ni?”
“Cerita alien”
“Malulah, nanti mak seorang saja orang tua tengok wayang tu”
“Alah, mesti ada orang lain lagi tua, kalau tak pun orang bukannya kisah”
“Kau tak malu orang nampak dah besar-besar jalan dengan mak?”
“Apa nak malu pulak jalan dengan mak sendiri”

District 9 is a refugee camp housing more than a million extra-terrestrial aliens that arrived at Johannesburg, of all places, some twenty years ago. Management of the camp, including the aliens’ welfare, was contracted out to a corporation called Multinational United (MNU). However, as a major defence contractor MNU is more interested in getting its hands on the aliens’ superior weapons technology, which is apparently useless in human hands.

District 9 was the most exciting science fiction movie I have seen since quite a while, and by far the smartest movie this season. The special effects by Weta were top-notch but not excessive so did not distract from the story. I would have liked to know more about how and why the aliens came. Though the movie was about apartheid, it seemed unbelievable that “we” knew so little about the aliens and their culture after all the years of coexistence and interaction. There were no stereotypes. Instead, the “prawns” were totally written off as pests.

Set in South Africa, it was also interesting to see iconic South American military hardware like the Oryx transport helicopter, Casspir personnel carrier, and CR-21 and NTW-20 assault and sniper rifles featured in the movie instead of the tired, generic American equipment we see far too often. The CR-21 in white stocks looked like toy guns, however. Why would anybody buy or make guns in white?

My mother enjoyed the movie too and didn’t sleep at all throughout the movie. She always sleeps during movies.

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CREDIT: All pictures from TriStar Pictures/Yahoo! Movies