Spacism in the Kasi
There is a raw and maverick quality to the short film Alive in Joburg. Ever seen a prawn Poleepkwa in a bio-suit toss a casspir at a pair of pestering soldiers? Not only did the 2005 project showcase some slick computer-generated imagery but it also put a curious spin on the theme of discrimination by dropping found-footage from the Apartheid era into a story about intolerance towards stranded aliens. South Africa’s subsequent Xenophobic attacks bathed the piece in a glow of surreality and made it even more clever than it was originally meant to be. The compelling stylistic amalgam earned director Neill Blomkamp a string of jobs to promote the release of Halo 3 which in turn and got him earmarked to direct a feature based on the Halo franchise. When the project fell through, Peter Jackson came to the rescue by offering to produce a feature-length re-working of Alive in Joburg. Jackson stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out US$30 million in loose change. Blomkamp went to the kasi and came back with District 9.
Technically a product of New Zealand and the United States, District 9 is set in South Africa in the late twentieth century and features live action shot on location in the townships of Johannesburg. What makes it different to other international productions that exploit South African themes and stories (i.e. Invictus) is that it is directed by someone who grew up in South Africa and features South Africans in the lead roles. The fact that Blomkamp is an ex-South African is significant insomuch as he uses the long arm of science fiction as a tool to engage the Apartheid experience. What else but Blomkamp’s displacement from life in South Africa as well as his need as an immigrant to resolve his South African identity could result in such a schizophrenic rendering of the social and political environment he grew up in?
District 9 has exposure to the SABC of the 1980s written all over it. The mock news footage in the film speaks of white South Africa’s mediated experience of the realities of township life and reminds us that our contemporary understanding of Apartheid “unrest” is predominantly televisual. We tend to forget that township tours in the 80s were restricted to gun-wielding security forces, meaning that life in the slums was imaginary for those who had never been there. The mystery of life in urban squalor has since spawned a genre of films that brings the experience of township life into existence for the international bourgeoisie. While “slumsploitation” has been delivered in racy packages likes City of God, Tsotsi and Slumdog Millionaire, District 9 is by far the most radical township fantasy the world has ever seen.
In a nutshell, District 9 uses a documentary framework (i.e. Carte Blache) to tell the story of a man’s strange biological metamorphosis (i.e. The Fly) and how it facilitates solidarity with a homesick alien (i.e. E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial). Wikus van de Merwe (Sharlto Copley) is reminiscent of fictional Afrikaans forebears like the quirky, pathos-driven characters of Leon Schuster and the stammering biologist played by Marius Weyers in South Africa’s most famous contribution to world cinema to date. In fact, District 9 is probably the most profoundly South African film since The Gods Must Be Crazy. Both films use political incorrectness to mock prejudice and both are hinged on captivating premises. However, after an inspired opening sequence that satirises modern life, The Gods Must Be Crazy descends into slapstick banality (albeit great entertainment). Similarly, everything conceptually brilliant about District 9 is told in the six minutes of Alive in Joburg. The allegorical spear at the centre of the feature does deliver some sharp thrusts but it can’t support the narrative it’s yolked to and promptly self-destructs. Nevertheless, we do get to see guns that turn people into pasta sauce (which is what most people came for in the first place).
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September 1st, 2009 at 9:53
Hmmm… I guess everyone needs their critics, but I do think you were nitpicking here. And you got a couple of things WRONG:
“The compelling stylistic amalgam earned director Neill Blomkamp a string of jobs to promote the release of Halo 3, which in turn got him earmarked to direct a feature based on the Halo franchise.”
The Halo 3 commercials (which subsequently won Blomkamp a Grand Prix at Cannes) happened AFTER he’d been earmarked for Halo. Jackson picked him for Halo months before the Halo 3 films happened - it seems to me as if the Halo 3 films were a consolation and attempt by Microsoft to convince the studios that Blomkamp could indeed do it.
“What else but Blomkamp’s displacement from life in South Africa as well as his need as an immigrant to resolve his South African identity could result in such a schizophrenic rendering of the social and political environment he grew up in?”
Ok, this is opinion, and I’ll give you mine. You’re being overly critical. Schizophrenic rendering? Have you looked at Blomkamp’s previous short films? Tetravaal - Third World Robocop? No my friend, you’ve got a filmmaker who loves sci-fi and has done what no-one else has ever managed to do - fuse the highly technological with the almost backwards and African. Of course he’ll have critics because of that, but I think this comment of yours is damning when damnation is not deserved.
“Similarly, everything conceptually brilliant about District 9 is told in the six minutes of Alive in Joburg. The allegorical spear at the centre of the feature does deliver some sharp thrusts but it can’t support the narrative it’s yolked to and promptly self-destructs. Nevertheless, we do get to see guns that turn people into pasta sauce (which is what most people came for in the first place).”
Can’t you see it for what it is? It’s a sci-fi film. Yes, it has a socio-political subtext, but hell, instead of seeing it as a ‘racist’ film that relies on ’slumsploitation’ (Jesus Christ, what will they think of next), see it as a film which sets itself in a part of South Africa which is very real for millions of our fellow country men, and see it as a way of re-imagining it - this is the first film I’ve seen in ages (or perhaps ever) in which the Afrikaner is actually redeemed. Instead of looking for all the negative aspects, look at some of the positives.
This film touches on DNA-encoded weapons, PMCs, arms manufacture and multi-national corporations. Everything else is a vehicle for this in my mind - this is what’s really being criticized, but I suppose in your crusade to find fault you couldn’t see past the tropes that the politically correct among us are hung up on. The film is about more than that, but beyond that, bigger critics have spoken and I’ll take their opinions with less salt.
September 1st, 2009 at 18:24
Willem: Thank you for taking the time to read this post. I sincerely appreciate your pointing out that the Halo 3 promos came after Blomkamp was earmarked for the Halo feature and have made the appropriate correction. Writers like me require details like this to be clarified by readers like you. Courtesies aside though, I find it curious that what you perceived as criticism evoked such a zealous response. The few qualitative assertions in this piece are nothing like the “crusade to find fault” you describe. Contrary to your bogus claims, the film is commended for its political incorrectness and at no point do I suggest that it is racist. Where did that come from?
I will concede that the term “slumsploitation” is crudely Marxist but the post itself doesn’t attach a connotation to it (and the inverted comas indicate that it was borrowed). Whether you like it or not, films are a commodity and the subject matter of films is commodified. This is a fact that we tend to forget when we get excited about the latest flick. We shouldn’t! Insomuch as we find the coexistence of disparate or antagonistic qualities in Blomkamp’s “technological” fused with “backwards” aesthetic (your antonyms), the word schizophrenic is a clinical description (which means that doctors use it and that nothing derogatory is implied). Moreover, considering how Blomkamp’s displacement from South Africa informs his unique aesthetic is an original and, to my mind, fascinating take on things. There’s a PhD in there! Be my guest.
As the post states, my interest in District 9 stems from the allegory that drives Blomkamp’s seminal project, Alive in Joburg. Stating that the narrative aspect of the feature can’t sustain (and proceeds to destroy) its allegorical core doesn’t infer that the film isn’t worth watching. In fact, I even provide the film with a bombastic claim to fame: “District 9 is the most profoundly South African film since The Gods Must Be Crazy.” That’s priceless (and I’m pretty sure that the ad-man in Neill would approve). Besides, few critics have bothered to tether this work to a South African filmmaking heritage that people like me are trying to construct in our national consciousness.
For the record, Profoundly South African is opposed to binary perceptions about the way people write about things like films as well as skewered ideas about the reasons why. It’s not about saying whether something is good or bad and the desire to challenge easy ways of looking at things is a legitimate motivation. District 9 should have taught you that (or were you simply seduced by the pretty pictures and how they made you feel about who you are and where you come from?). See it for what it is? Why would I want to diminish my experience? Stick to the bigger critics by all means but, if it wasn’t for people like me, there’d be less salt (and reading about popular culture would be a little bland).
September 1st, 2009 at 20:10
A PhD in there? Perhaps you are right:
http://blogs.channel24.co.za/celebratingmovies/South-African-Cinema-an-essay-on-authenticity-African-Cinema-and-the-debate-around-a-national-identity
I wrote that a few years ago about South African national identity within the larger context of African Cinema. When I look at it now I can’t believe I did, because I swear to god all the academic lingo has seeped out of the wound I sustained from working in the film industry. I’m sure there are many faults, but I think we’re on the same page though, or that we, at the very least, have the same agenda. If you scroll down to the last section, you’ll find a piece entitled THE SOCIAL RELEVANCE OF ALIVE IN JOBURG. Read it, I think you’ll appreciate it.
I just find your wording of certain assertions in your piece to be overly critical of something which is very simple, and which has never happened in SA before:
A cool story universe (District 9 Township Wasteland) married to a cool character arc (premise of District 9 bureaucrat eventually becoming that which he fights against and is initially diametrically opposed to).
SA filmmakers have forever gotten lost in either the cool story universe, or the cool character arc - I don’t think they’ve ever really successfully married the two, but perhaps that’s because I wanna see more films like this, and less like Totsi or other SA films which guilt trip white Afrikaners.
Unfortunately I read this as your schizophrenic rendering, and not the backwards married to the the technological. Are we talking modal or thematic qualities? Perhaps you should have clarified, because I just saw it as an unfounded criticism, which now makes a little more sense (I think).
Blomkamp’s unique aesthetic is indeed thanks in part to his displacement to Canada, but before him Sharlto Copley and Simon Hansen (former partners and both friends of Blomkamp, who spotted his talent at age 14 while he was still living in SA) had been pioneering visual FX in South Africa and were trying to do what he did. They just didn’t have a Peter Jackson behind them. I have seen some of Blomkamp’s earlier work that you won’t find online. He was into it (and good at it) long before he left our sunny shores, and I think the progenitor for D9 - Alive, is a result of his youth spent in SA.
As for racism? I dunno, I must have read spacism wrong. Silly me!!
I think my big problem with your post is I can’t figure out whether you’re praising it or condemning it, because I fear you lose me in an overtly academic critique - nothing wrong with this, but if you write in such a fashion you automatically open yourself up to critics.
So what is it? You call it the most profound SA film since Gods, but at the same time you say “The allegorical spear at the centre of the feature does deliver some sharp thrusts but it can’t support the narrative it’s yolked to and promptly self-destructs.”
I disagree. Why is it rated so highly on IMDb when compared to other sci-fi actioners from this year. What about it’s Metacritic score?
It’s not perfect, but I think you give it less credit than it’s due. Otherwise, thank you for the satisfying debate around D9. My biggest concern is just that it’s not a one time thing, and that it opens up the doors for other filmmakers who want to do what Blomkamp and Copley are doing
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:11
Willem: Your comprehensive interventions bespeak a keen mind driven by the tenacity of a
prawnPoleepkwa (and that’s a compliment). Thanks for the link. Working in the industry certainly does fly in the face of academics, which is why I insist on talking about bigger pictures when writing about film. True, Spacism in the Kasi evades discussing aspects of District 9 that merit praise but, as you point out, IMDb and Metacritic have satisfactory drawn attention to these. The post keeps its cards close to its chest because it provides alternate ways of engaging the film but doesn’t really want to tell you what to do with them. That District 9 is important goes without saying. For many South Africans, it marks a fresh and satisfying experience of themselves on screen and provides new tools for dissecting our historically troubled subconscious (albeit that it leaves us performing surgical procedures on soup). The strange cathartic response it has elicited is testament to how successfully it allows some of us to probe the past but if this simply spills into sycophantism, there’ll be no psychological and artistic growth. You see, it’s the people who problematise (and I don’t mean criticise) who create the need for new doors to be opened in the first place.