District 9 and Perception

I loved District 9. Part buddy movie, part Mission Impossible (minus Tom Cruise, thankfully, part romance, part message movie. All within the framework of a science fiction action pic. I think it belongs up there with Soylent Green, Silent Running, the original Rollerball. All movies that had something significant to say and said it through one of the grand traditions of Science Fiction, the overarching metaphor.

Yes, the message of this story is largely about racism. That much is about as hidden as the enviromental message of Silent Running. But it is also about profiteering (in the from of the Nigerians), about corporate corruption and the degradation of the human soul and about the dangers of absolute power.

In that sense, District 9 shares a theme with movies like The Departed or even classics of literature like King Lear.

I think the film belongs in my Top 5 for 2009. Someday maybe I'll actually even post a list like that...but I always hate the idea of limiting myself, so probably not. Also, due to various factors, if I were to post a Top Ten of 2009 list, I would probably only have to be excluding one or two films. I just didn't see as many as I wanted and that leaves the possibilities that something like Monsters vs Aliens could make a Top Ten list and I can't have that on my conscience.

Now, the reason that I talked about perception in the title is that my girlfriend was really kind of "meh" about the movie. True, some of her objection was to the graphic violence (which surprised me as well. I didn't expect that much gore.) and to the handheld camera work. Many people don't want their movies to look like documentary television.

However, this is my girlfriend we are talking about and those of you who know her know that she isn't going to form an opinion based only on such limited factors. Influenced by them, certainly, but not formed by them.

So what makes me love this flick and her consider it to be alright but not great? Is it the whole "war movie" thing? I mean, there is definitely a component of films that addresses the testosterone in ways that seem unexpalinable otherwise. I'm thinking not only of District 9, but of movies like The Thin Red Line, Saving Private Ryan, Letters From Iwo Jima.

These are films loved by myself and many men that are often met with "meh" by the women we love and trust.

I don't have an answer, I'm just musing on it. But something made me decide this movie was "Wow!" and her decide it was a mediocre combination of Blade Runner and Enemy Mine. (She likes both of those, by the way...more than she liked District 9.)

I just wonder what it was...

Perhaps part of it is also that I am more cognizant of the story about how District 9 got made and am thus pre-disposed to like the movie. She doesn't take an interest in the movie industry at all, and thus judged it on its own merits without that influence.

Anyway, I don't have an answer to that. But as to District 9, I say buy it and love it and she says its a decent movie but nothing special.