These aliens look very insectoid, although they are bipeds with a roughly
human shape. They are treated as lesser beings and live in subsistence
conditions. Their efforts to make due with a bad situation by, say,
picking through trash for usable objects or scavenging for food, only
confirm the population's beliefs that the aliens are second-class creatures.
However, as the movie progresses, we see more and more signs of what,
for lack of a better term, I'll call humanity. It soon becomes clear
that they are living this way only out of necessity, simply trying to
survive.
Considering that the humans are able to fly helicopters up to the mothership,
and to communicate with the aliens, having learned their language, you
might wonder why somebody doesn't just talk to them and figure out what
the aliens need to fix their ship and get going. There is one key reason:
weapons. The aliens have very crude-looking but powerful weapons which
can only be used by other aliens. The humans want to keep the aliens
on the planet until they can figure out how to make this alien weaponry
work, even though this means detaining a million aliens in deplorable
conditions.
Enter the protagonist, Wikus (Sharlto Copley), a very ordinary paper
pusher for the multinational corporation which handles alien affairs.
Due to pressure from the local citizenry, the corporation decides to
relocate the aliens from their shantytown into a tent city further outside
town, where citizens will not have to see them on a daily basis. Wikus,
the son-in-law of the big cheese, is promoted to head of the relocation
project.
In this role, Wikus is followed by a camera crew, documenting his efforts
to convince the aliens to sign paperwork acknowledging that they are
giving up their shabby homes and moving to a new camp. All the while,
he puts up with everything from resistance to overzealous, trigger-happy
enforcers from the corporation.
I won't tell you what happens to Wikus or where the plot takes him,
only that by the end of the movie, he sees things in a vastly different
way. I can almost guarantee the audience will, as well.
It was a very strong choice to set this movie in South Africa, because
it reminds anyone born in the last 30 years that in our recent past,
it was not aliens but, in fact, humans who were treated this way. Human
beings who just happened to have more melanin in their skin. Yet, they
were treated much the same as the aliens in this movie, kept separate
in deplorable conditions.
As you watch this movie and think about it, how many times do we still,
even today, regard people of other cultures, other religions, as being
so alien they might as well be insectoid? Especially when we see the
movie through the eyes of an everyman who is not a cruel person, who
has no inherent prejudices and really does want to see justice prevail.
Yet, even he is guilty of offenses, just because he follows the status
quo.
Ultimately, the movie makes a passionate argument to speak out and
to act in cases where you see injustice, regardless of what the rest
of the world says. A valuable lesson, for sure.
The movie is incredibly well done on all levels: writing, acting, mise
en scene, special effects. Believe it or not, the aliens are completely
CGI but do not look like they are. Instead, you'll wonder how an actor
managed to fit inside those suits. The cinema verite camerawork suits
the story very well. It's an edge-of-your-seat movie, with something
happening every moment. Even as they're setting up the situation, there
is foreshadowing that feeds the viewer's curiosity. And while one party
guest said she thought it was too intense to watch repeatedly, it is
one of the few recent movies that I think would be worth viewing a second
time.
Rating: ***** (5 out of 5)
I've only just begun watching Battlestar Galactica, so I can't
make an overall assessment yet of the series. So far, I've watched the
original miniseries, which serves as a pilot for the series, as well
as the first two episodes.
While I certainly can't fault my friends for failing to talk up this
series — since so many of them loved it — I can say that I
would have watched it sooner if I knew it was so good. I expected it
to be a military shoot-em-up film, heavy on military strategy. That
sort of movie or TV series makes my brain dry up and float away. Despite
the name, however, this is a very different series, in part because
it's a different sort of war.
Again, I would say that this series has some real-life analogies to
our current geopolitical climate. This post-9/11 science fiction series
borrows from our recent past. In the opening episodes, the citizenry
consider themselves at peace, with the last major conflict 40 years
ago, against robots created by the humans who then turned on them. It's
such a peaceful time they're about to decommission one of their major
battleships from that war, the Battlestar Galactica.
As the series begins, we meet members of the military brass, ordinary
crew members, and a political detail headed by the education secretary,
there to attend the ceremony. While this ceremony is taking place, the
Cylons launch a surprise attack and decimate the planet, forcing the
Galactica back into action, leading a ragtag convoy of refugee ships
as they seek safety elsewhere.
Of course, what the humans don't know is that, in the 40-year interval
since the last war, the Cylons developed a new breed of Cylon, indistinguishable
from humans.
These opening episodes make haunting allusions to 9/11, from the surprise
attack in a time of peace to the makeshift memorials of walls mounted
with photos of the dead and missing. Such scenes are familiar from any
modern disaster, from 9/11 to the Indonesian Christmas tsunami.
The military, used to fighting a conventional war against known enemies
in clearly-defined combat roles, struggles to adjust to this new type
of war. Meantime, we learn that at least one person aboard the battlestar
is a Cylon sleeper agent, a Cylon who does not realize it. In this miniseries,
unlike District 9, the "other" looks just like anyone
else. This tends to render suspicious any action that is slightly unusual.
Already, there are hints that such thinking might lead to paranoia and
persecution of those viewed as a threat. Sound familiar?
It's too early to give this series a rating, but so far, I'm definitely
intrigued. I'm sure there are many more surprises in store. I look forward
to discovering them.
