journal features

movie review - District 9

the journal of Michael Werneburg

twenty-eight years and a million words

Toronto, 2011.05.02

This is a science fiction story in which humans have since the early 1980's shared the planet with aliens that touched down in South Africa. The hapless aliens are humanoid but vaguely crustacean in nature and don't themselves seem to understand the mysterious space-craft in which they arrived. Humans regulated them to a refugee camp and dismissively call them "prawns". One particularly obtuse company official is charged with managing the migration of the refugees to a new settlement - much against the wishes of the aliens. Filmed in a semi-documentary fashion, it follows the disastrous attempt by the bumbling official to deal with the racial implications, policing, and logistical issues, which then take back seat after he is exposed to a biological agent that appears to be a central part of the alien's technology. I found the story engaging and original, nicely reflecting on real-world issues without being heavy-handed.

Recommended.

rand()m quote

Meaning is not something you stumble across, like the answer to a riddle or the prize in a treasure hunt. Meaning is something you build into your life. You build it out of your own past, out of your affections and loyalties, out of the experience of humankind as it is passed on to you, out of your own talent and understanding, out of the things you believe in, out of the things and people you love, out of the values for which you are willing to sacrifice something. The ingredients are there. You are the only one who can put them together into that unique pattern that will be your life. Let it be a life that has dignity and meaning for you. If it does, then the particular balance of success or failure is of less account.

—John Gardner