Hey U Guys

Tracy wrote up her review of the film here and I wanted to add my thoughts on seeing Neill Blomkamp's debut film, District 9. This won't be a review as such, more a description of my experience of seeing this film. There won't be spoilers and if you're in two minds about going to see this film I implore you to read on.

District 9 is an intelligent, effective sci-fi thriller made with a love of film writ large into every single frame. It is the sci-fi action film you've waited all summer for. It is my film of the year so far, and here's why.

I would argue that only a low budget film from a new director can appear in the cinematic skies without warning and elicit such a strong response. Compare the weighty marketing campaigns for the summer's other big films, Transformers and G.I. Joe had multiple bombastic trailers, salacious TV spots, and a ton of advertising streams. Only with Hollywood's spotlight focussed firmly on these films were Neill Blomkamp and Peter Jackson able to move in the shadows, using effective and subtle marketing to build expectations without showing anything that would spoil the film. And it pays off. It's not that you won't believe what you see on screen - its power lies in the fact that you will.

It's very easy to go into District 9 fresh and unencumbered by preconceptions. Even the spectacle of the Alien mothership hovering over Jo-burg in the dusty sunsets as seen in the trailer drops quickly to the background as the expert documentary footage begins the film, and the genius of the set up is this: Blomkamp creates a plausible world using talking heads and incredibly realistic news footage from the 1980s of when the mothership arrived (if you remember V you'll be smiling throughout this bit).

And he adds compelling details to this beginning, compounding our investment - particularly the reveal of what the SA military found when, after three long, tense and silent months, they drilled their way into the dead mothership to find a million aliens, leaderless and afraid.

The world is set up instantly, and with such deftness and clarity that as we are introduced to our main players we, like them, are acclimatised to the Alien presence, allowing us to concentrate on the emotion of the story.

Most of us can remember, or are able conjure up images of South Africa under apartheid and the scenes of intimidation, rioting, of those living in squalor and fear are sadly all too familiar. The human forces of MNU, the corporation assigned to take care of the Alien welfare, display racist (or species-ist I guess) and aggressive tendencies. The protagonist Wikus Van De Merwe, played by Sharlto Copley (virtually an amateur in what is the best debut performance of the new century), will anger you, make you despair as he becomes the cowardly face of hostile bureaucracy. The humans are suspicious, the aliens angry and fearful. This is nothing we haven't seen before.

The documentary style gives the introduction to the film a realistic quality, but is done so well that at no point do you ever think you're not watching something that really happened. Blomkamp sometimes plays it like an internet conspiracy video with infra-red footage filmed in secret or CCTV footage spliced in with the regular footage. It all adds to construct one of the most realistic alternate history world in cinematic history - this is to say nothing of the incredible CG used; I never once saw the joins and that is an incredible achievement by Weta and the visual effects teams used. It is a complete world and you never think otherwise- the illusion is that good.

The establishing shots of District 9 are awe inspiring. Thousands upon thousands of rickety shacks seem to expand like bacteria under a microscope piled on top of one another to create a landscape of desolation and hopelessness. Again, we've seen enough real news footage for our subconscious to add considerable weight to the images we see. Delving into the streets of the shanty town we meet some of the aliens mingling with the criminal overlords, trading weapons, gambling, selling discarded goods salvaged from the mountains of rubbish. We witness double crossing, intimidation, murder; it is a disturbing world, so far removed from the Abercrombie & Fitch world of Transformers of G.I. Joe.

Seeing the enforced exodus from District 9 to a new camp miles away from Jo-burg, headed by our friend, the nerdish Wikus, is both hilarious and horrendous. The militarised arm of MNU follows at a close distance behind him and when he goes from shack to shack getting 'marks' (signatures) on the various eviction notices there is always a sniper's rifle trained on the aliens. The transition from the introductory documentary style to the third person film making is seamless, cutting back and forth between the CCTV, old news footage, cameras present in the diegesis and those that are not present is very intelligently done. At no point do we notice the change.

The handheld style has been used to great effect over ten years ago with Blair Witch and Cloverfield last year were great examples of a genre film heavily enhanced by the method of film making. I'm a true believer in celebrating interesting ways of storytelling and District 9 gains great emotional and visceral impact from the handheld documentary style.

It is the attention to detail that makes this film worth seeing as many times as possible. The prawn/scoprion cock fights with humans and aliens crowded around, the fuzzy VHS quality of the 1980s news footage, the 'slave names' of the aliens, the voodoo worship of the Nigerian overlords present in District 9, it all seems very plausible and terrifying.

I won't give away details of the story, because that would take away the power of the narrative, suffice to say that there are scenes that will take your breath away. Sharlto Copley is simply amazing, veering from one emotional state to another throughout the film, being the man on the run has never seemed so isolating.

The action moves quickly from scene to scene with precision and economy, the partially improvised script is essential to the feel of the film and nothing is wasted, every moment is a seed planted for the harvest we reap at the film's close.

Crucial to the film's energy is the constant element of surprise. No matter what you have seen before in documentaries or sci-fi films (Starship Troopers kept cropping up as the idealised Hollywood version of this film) you never know what's coming up. And it's not that Blomkamp steers clear of cliche, it is that the world is so firmly grounded in our own that when an alien is torn apart by a blast from one of the alien's weapons it shocks you, you feel it viscerally. And it happens a lot, and using the medium of the handheld expose documentary we understand the images in a particular way and it culminates in an evocative world which we become emotionally invested in from the beginning.

Blomkamp and Jackson spoke of the alien's design, singling out the decision to have faces in order for us to engage emotionally with them and it works very well. Friendship, desperation, anger and fear - all of these emotions are portrayed superbly by the CG artists and Blomkamp shows his background in special effects with his handling of the CG heavy scenes.

One in particular will blow your mind because at no point does it seems like anything special. Our lead alien and his son are tearing apart their shack to find something very important to them and the plot, all the time they are in the dark with a torch and a light swinging around, following them as they scavenge. And it's all effects - the light sources, the aliens themselves, the physical objects that they move. Halfway through the scene it hit me - virtually nothing on screen is real. Referring back to the, admittedly very convincing, CG of Transformers 2 this feels like its on another level because we are so invested in the narrative and the characters.

It is thrilling to see something this good, this understated and accomplished, so intelligently conveyed and emotionally powerful. It happens so rarely that a film transcends its genre and time with such grace and ease, allowing you to believe in the power of cinema to educate and excite in equal measure, offering a story whose stakes are relatively small and yet we feel each twist and turn of Wikus's evolving fortunes keenly and in our heart.

When I was a kid I used to leave the cinema and look out for X-wings or Superman to fly by, when I left the screening room in Soho I watched the London skies for a mothership. District 9 made me believe again. Stop watching the skies, go and see this and revel in a truly amazing film.