The destitute aliens of District 9 invaded US box offices on 14 August 2009, raking in an estimated $37 million from around 4 000 screens at 3 049 sites over the weekend. The Time Traveller’s Wife earned just over half that from a comparable release to claim second spot out of the other new releases.

South African sci-fi fans will get to see expat Neill Blomkamp’s directorial debut explode across 80 local screens on 28 August 2009.

District 9 entertains on many levels. At face value it is a ripping good sci-fi action adventure yarn in the mocumentary style, but it can also be interpreted as an allegory for both the old and the new South Africa, or of prejudice or xenophobia or the rights of the individual.

Director Neill Blomkamp says, “The story didn’t come from a place of wanting to tell some kind of bleeding heart story about Apartheid. There are metaphors and allegories for Apartheid, but that’s not the genesis of the story. I know Joburg really well and I thought that it would serve as a really interesting place to put science fiction. It was only after I’d set the science fiction there that I realised that a bunch of political issues could come up. It makes the science fiction unique, hopefully, and doesn’t make it preachy.”

The result is science fiction of the third world - a grungy view of a globally important event in the third world familiar from so many foreign news reports. Form follows thesis in a well-sustained documentary style of cinematography and storytelling.

“The mocumentary approach arose because I love science fiction and I wanted to see it in a way that feels more real to me - and hopefully the audience,” Neill says. “When we see news footage, our minds click into a different mode.”

Post production, including the extensive CGI, was done largely in Canada. “It’s hilarious,” laughs Neill. “Peter Jackson asked his own company to do the CGI and they said ‘No’ because they’re completely consumed by doing James Cameron’s Avatar.”

Although WETA were responsible for the mother ship and the drop ship, Canadian film production rebates tipped the scales in favour of doing the post production in Neill’s home town of Vancouver.

There is a set-up for a sequel, which Neill says only presented itself in final edit, but he admits not knowing the capabilities of South African specialist post houses, so the chances of finishing an as yet un-planned District 10 in South Africa are doubtful.
“I have no doubt that there are some great CGI artists here,” he says, “but the statistics are against there being enough capacity to cope with the volume demanded by science fiction films.”

The contribution of supporting actors may be small in number of lines, but local performers like David James, Vanessa Haywood, Eugene Khumbanyiwa, Kenneth Nkosi, Sylvaine Strike and a host of others all match the standard set by the movie as a whole. District 9 avoids a common pitfall in South African films - weakness in support roles. Keep an eye out for Jason Cope, who is brilliant but unrecognisable as the lead alien, Christopher Johnson, and pops up in a number of other roles.

The human star of the show is Sharlto Copley as the lead character, Wikus van der Merwe. The first-time actor is awed by the fact that he already has an international agent, William Morris Endeavor, one of the very biggest, shepherding his new career. He has a role in an American “summer movie” already in the final stage of negotiation; not bad for a producer / director whose acting experience extended to using a facility with accents to play pranks on his friends. “I’d never done heavy dramatic stuff, so Peter and Neill took an amazing chance with me,” Sharlto says in awe. “For the earlier Wikus, I could just slip into the accent and it felt as though I was just ‘channelling’ him, esoteric as that might sound! For the later scenes, I was in unknown territory, so I would take five or ten minutes to space out from everybody around me and get into a more intense frame of mind.”

Sharlto’s achievement is all the more remarkable in the light of Neill’s improvisational approach to the script. “He’d give me an in point, three or four beats within a scene and an out point, then let me run with it,” he says.

Sharlto is proud of his strong relationship with the crew. “I love those guys - they understood what I was going through and went out of their way to create a supportive environment for me.”

Potential stardom hasn’t dimmed Sharlto’s enjoyment of larking about with character voices - as I leave, he calls out: “Ask Max Poolman why he didn’t let Wikus wear ear-plugs during the shootout in the bio lab, bliksem!”

Watch the trailer here. Watch Neill's short film that inspired it all here.

Digby Young