Something to watch tonight: District 9

Every so often an anniversary sneaks up behind you and smacks you on the arse.

Neill Blomkamp’s geni­us sci­ence fic­tion thrill­er District 9 was released in Australia and New Zealand this week in 2009 – 17 years ago¹. In my review at the time, I waxed lyr­ic­al about how it sig­nalled a golden age of com­mer­cial film­mak­ing in Wellington – while District 9 was shot in South Africa, Blomkamp was taken under the wing of Peter Jackson and Wētā, etc. and the effects and fin­ish­ing were done here:

It’s going to be a massive few months for Wellywood – District 9 seems to have come out of nowhere to take the world by storm (Currently #35 in the IMDb All Time list, just below Citizen Kane. I kid you not) and The Lovely Bones trail­er is whet­ting everyone’s appet­ite at just the right time. This Friday, Wellington audi­ences are the first in the world to see a fif­teen minute sampler of the loc­ally shot Avatar (Readings from 11.45am, free of charge) and three more Film Commission fea­tures are due for release between now and Christmas: The Strength of Water, Under the Mountain and The Vintner’s Luck, all of which have a sig­ni­fic­ant Wellington com­pon­ent to them.

I haven’t rewatched District 9 since I obtained the Blu-ray (prob­ably 16 years ago) but read­ing my review tempts me to get it down off the shelf and give it anoth­er spin. If you don’t have a disc handy, there are oth­er ways to watch lis­ted below.

Aliens have arrived on earth but unlike in the 70s and 80s they aren’t here to tell us how to con­nect with the uni­verse and expand our con­scious­ness. And it isn’t like the 90s when they arrived to car­a­mel­ize us with their death rays. These ali­ens have arrived for remark­ably 21^st cen­tury reas­ons – their ship is crippled and with no way home they are destined to become refugees, out­casts, mis­un­der­stood second-class citizens.

So, of course, it’s only appro­pri­ate that they arrive in Johannesburg where until recently vast num­bers of people were kept in sub-human con­di­tions, liv­ing in shanty towns. The par­al­lels are obvi­ous but not hammered home too heav­ily but this is a Wingnut film first and fore­most so the satire is covered in body parts and human and ali­en flu­ids of vari­ous vis­cos­it­ies. The here­to­fore unknown (but bril­liant) Sharlto Copley plays the hap­less Wikus Van Der Merwe, ordered to lead a forced relo­ca­tion of the ali­en “prawns” to a new tent city, but is it slum clear­ance or eth­nic cleansing?

I pre­dicted great things for young Blomkamp but his career seems to have gone off the boil – he fell out with Jackson at a fairly early stage and, while I am very fond of Matt Damon in Elysium, Gran Turismo was not much of a return to form. The latest news stor­ies are of Blomkamp exper­i­ment­ing with gen­er­at­ive AI so I fear his actu­al film­mak­ing skills may be lost to us. 

Also in that October 2009 Capital Times column: former Wellingtonian Christine Jeffs’ Sunshine Cleaning (star­ring Emily Blunt and Amy Adams), Wellington doc­u­ment­ary maker Luit Bieringa’s film about the legendary art deal­er Peter McLeavey, The Man in the Hat², 2001 “Ealing-style romantic com­edy, The Rocket Post, and Renée Zellweger in the hor­ror film Case 39.

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Where to watch District 9

Aotearoa: Digital rental

Australia: Streaming on Prime Video

Canada: Streaming on Crave, Starz or Hollywood Suite

Ireland: Digital rental

India: Not cur­rently available

USA: Digital rental

UK: Streaming on Sony Pictures Core³

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1. I know the review I’m link­ing to is dated 9 October. I’m not sure why. Maybe, the 13 August release date on IMDb was for a première? ↩︎
2. Not to be con­fused with The Man in the Hat. ↩︎
3. Whatever that is. ↩︎