Comments on: Quick Review: District 9

By: Sam Juliano

Sam Juliano — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 03:18:30 +0000

Chris: I completely disagree with you on what you said here about the characters, and subsequently the overwhelmingly emotional power of the film, which reached it supreme expression in the final scenes. We looked at the same film and came away with completely different reactions. Fair enough.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 16:23:06 +0000

District 9 had such amazing potential, but fell disappointingly short. The high-concept was great, the setting was brilliant, and the special effects were fantastic. But the utter lack of sympathetic human characters really killed it for me. Every human was either a sociopath, an idiot, or both. The “man’s inhumanity to man” thing works much better when the characters feel like people, and not one-dimensional caricatures of simpleminded inhumanity.

For example, the evil corporation torturing Wikus as profit-motivated weapons research is a compelling idea that resonates well in our world of waterboardings and blood diamonds. But Blomkamp couldn’t let that cruelty stand on its own; his researchers went out of their way to torment Wikus. (Is it necessary for the researcher to scream “fuck your wife” in his face?) Had the viewer been tempted to identify with the researchers, even for a second, this would have been a much more effective scene.

By: Sam Juliano

Sam Juliano — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 15:15:35 +0000

Ah, au contraire Andrew! You have your Tarantino and I have this film, which for me ranks as one of the year’s best. I realize the jerky visual style will be a turn off for some, and it sometimes as you note does segued into traditional action movie pyrotechnics, but in the end it’s a shattering film both in a humanistic and thematic sense, as it’s a compelling study of man’s inhumanity to man. I saw this film late at night at the small theatre in Hershey, Pennsylvania during a recent family weekend trip, and I walked out devastated.

In a bad sense, it recalled in some ways the terrible CLOVERFIELD, but there was valid emotional resonance which is still hard to shake. It’s stylistic excesses hence don’t mean all that much for me. As always your capsule here is informed by great reasoning and writing.