District 9: “Is that cat food?”
The surprise popularity of Neil Blomkamp’s first feature-length film, District 9, is probably best summarized by pointing out that this non-descript South African/science fiction/alien/action/social commentary/no-one-was-really-quite-sure film charmed its way into the best picture Oscar nominations in the same year that Inglourious Basterds and The Hurt Locker were in the running.
If we look closely, however, it is not difficult to see the level of skill in all areas of this movie that make it so much more than its blurb suggests. From the introduction of small-minded bureaucrat Wikus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley) to the staggering final ten minutes of unadulterated violence, District 9 follows its plot closely and with a tight balance of humour and emotion. But the cleverest thing about this film is how the story that is under the surface of the action – of Wikus’ two-fold transformation not just from man to alien but from ignorant man to actual human being – runs at just the right level between subtlety and clarity. One of the best examples of this is the cat food eating scene.
Here, Wikus – having only narrowly escaped certain vivisection at the hands of his own beloved government – finds himself adrift in the alien territory with few food choices other than cat-food, the aliens’ delicacy, which he eats with a faint but definite trace of relish. On the face of it, a scene that involves someone scraping cat food out of a tin and eating it appears to serve the traditional sort of attention-grabbing yuk-factor, a cheery “good luck unseeing that!” from Blomkamp to cat owners everywhere stamped all over it. But the scene is doing more than adding to District 9’s sense of fun.
It is a demonstration of the extent of Wikus’ terrible plight – one that is actually far more powerful than the later scene in which the vicious advances of the physical mutation drive him into a frenzy of cursing and tears. The feeling in that scene is a mixture of fear, anger, panic and helplessness – it is extreme, but it is an entirely human response. It is recognisable. What happens with the cat-food is- to put it mildly – not. It is this that terrifies Wikus, and that terrifies the audience on his behalf. We understand the reaction that involves tears and screaming – we do not understand the reaction that involves eating cat-food. And neither, we can see, does Wikus.
