This blog post examines the conflict between humans and aliens revealed through the mockumentary technique in the film District 9, briefly highlighting the social message embedded within it.
Science Fiction Films Utilizing the Mockumentary Technique
The formal name for SF films is Science Fiction Film, referring to movies centered on science fiction themes. Well-known SF films include ‘E.T.’, ‘Jurassic Park’, ‘Star Wars’, and ‘The Terminator’. These films leave a strong impression on audiences with their dazzling computer graphics (CG) and exceptional imagination, making them think, “This is what an SF film is.”
However, ‘District 9’ adds distinctly different elements compared to the aforementioned films, leaving an even more powerful impression. It’s not that this film boasts superior computer graphics or excessively bizarre imagination compared to other SF films. Rather, its uniqueness lies in its use of an extra-cinematic technique—the mockumentary technique—to make the film feel more vivid and special.
What are documentary techniques and mockumentaries?
Documentary techniques literally refer to structuring a film like a documentary. For example, inserting news footage, interview scenes, or investigative footage throughout, or using handheld shots during crucial climax scenes. Handheld shots provide an effect as if someone were actually recording with a camcorder. This technique is frequently used in horror or war films, effectively conveying dramatic realism to the audience through the shaky footage.
Films employing documentary techniques are often linked to political or social issues, frequently sparking controversy or causing social repercussions. A prime example showcasing this is Michael Moore’s ‘Fahrenheit 9/11’. This film powerfully conveys political themes through its documentary format, persuasively structured around real events.
In contrast, the mockumentary technique, as the name suggests, means ‘fake documentary’. It is a film shot using the documentary format, exploiting the audience’s inherent assumption that documentaries capture reality. This guides the audience into accepting a fictional story as if it were real. In other words, the focus of a mockumentary is maximizing the audience’s emotional immersion.
‘District 9’ is a work that actively utilizes this technique. The film borrows the documentary format, inducing the audience to mistake the events in the film for something that actually happened in reality. This breaks down the boundary between reality and fiction, maximizing the film’s sense of realism.
This technique is prominent even in the film’s opening. Various interviews and news footage appear, making the audience feel as if they are watching a documentary. This direction makes the film’s fantastical setting feel like actual reality, providing a deeper sense of immersion.
‘District 9,’ which breathed new life into the sci-fi genre through the mockumentary technique, goes beyond being mere entertainment. It delivers a powerful message that prompts audiences to reflect on real-world issues. The film’s unique direction didn’t focus solely on technical depiction; it illuminated humanity and social conflict, presenting new possibilities for sci-fi cinema.
‘District 9’ and the Effectiveness of the Mockumentary Technique
However, the film’s excellence isn’t solely due to its use of the mockumentary technique. The core lies in the film’s internal aspects—whether the message the director intends to convey is effectively revealed. To examine whether ‘District 9’ achieved this well, let’s consider the film ‘Cloverfield’. This film also applied the mockumentary technique to the sci-fi genre, and in terms of tension and realism, the two films were similar. However, after watching ‘Cloverfield’, I couldn’t clearly understand what message the director was trying to convey. To me, it was simply a movie featuring monsters, and the rest of the content wasn’t clearly grasped.
Ultimately, the mockumentary technique serves as a framework to heighten the film’s realism and strengthen the audience’s focus; what matters is the content within that framework. This becomes clearer in ‘District 9’ when the film, which initially used the documentary technique to unfold from a third-person perspective, shifts its focus to the protagonist, Wikus van de Merwe, after the midpoint. The film employs the mockumentary format in its opening to draw the audience in. Once the story progresses and the audience’s immersion is deemed sufficient, it concentrates on the protagonist and focuses on delivering its message.
Humans’ enemy is not the aliens!
A brief summary of the film’s plot follows. In 1982, a massive spacecraft carrying millions of aliens appears above Cape Town, South Africa. However, the spacecraft shows no movement, and humans explore it. During this process, they discover that all the aliens are sick and weakened inside the ship. Humans then settle them in a specific area. That place is District 9.
Though originally violent and aggressive lifeforms, the alien leadership issues an order to refrain from harming the humans who rescued them, seeking coexistence and development with Earth’s inhabitants. However, these efforts soon collapse. Key factors include divisions within the alien leadership, hostility from human citizens, and human greed for the aliens’ advanced weapons. Ultimately, coexistence between humans and aliens becomes impossible, and the aliens are forced to live like homeless people in the squalid shantytown of District 9. They are exploited by humans and even killed for no apparent reason. Humans, as the socially dominant group, oppress the aliens, who despite possessing advanced weaponry, become the socially disadvantaged.
The film’s protagonist, Wikus van de Merwe, is accidentally exposed to an alien liquid while patrolling District 9 on duty. As a result, his right arm begins to undergo alien transformation. Fleeing humans who want to exploit him medically, he eventually realizes there is nowhere to escape but District 9 itself and stays there. There, he joins forces with other aliens to fight in order to become human again. During this process, he gradually begins to see things from the aliens’ perspective rather than humanity’s. He comes to realize how selfish and cruel all humans, including his former self, have been towards the aliens and towards each other.
By presenting this entire process through the mockumentary technique, the audience accepts humanity’s cruel aspects as fact and is compelled to seriously contemplate these issues.
The Message of ‘District 9’ and Our Reflection
Imagine watching a documentary about water pollution in our country. Through it, we would correctly recognize the severity of the pollution, contemplate ways to improve the situation, and translate that into action. Similarly, beyond the dynamism and realism the mockumentary technique provides, we expand our horizons of thought. It doesn’t stop at merely accepting the problem as fact; it connects to contemplation and action aimed at solving it.
In typical alien sci-fi films, aliens are portrayed as enemies invading Earth, and the story unfolds with humans fighting back and ultimately triumphing. In contrast, ‘District 9’ completely flips this narrative. Aliens are depicted as the underdogs, while humans are portrayed as the dominant power ruling over them. As the socially dominant group, humans exploit, use, torment, and even kill the socially vulnerable aliens.
Why did the director subvert this typical alien sci-fi framework? To understand this, we must examine the context in which the film was made. Conventional alien sci-fi films are primarily set in major European or American cities. However, this film is set in Johannesburg, South Africa. This serves as an indirect critique of the ‘apartheid’ system once enforced in South Africa.
‘Apartheid’ refers to South Africa’s extreme policy and system of racial segregation. In the past, white people committed severe discrimination and oppression, forcing black people into designated areas and restricting their residence to those zones. It becomes easier to understand if you consider the aliens in the film as actual humans. The aliens are humans like us, existing on Earth, and they are the socially vulnerable. The socially powerful commit atrocities against these vulnerable groups without hesitation.
The director masterfully portrays human selfishness and cruelty through the film’s setting in Johannesburg, the sci-fi genre, and the mockumentary technique.
Conclusion
Looking back at human history, prejudice, discrimination, and oppression against the weak have been perpetrated, along with countless atrocities committed under the dangerous belief that one’s own convictions are righteous. We already know this through numerous events: world wars, the tragedy of fratricidal conflict like the Korean War, the Cold War between the US and the Soviet Union, the Maruta experiments, the Holocaust, religious wars, and more. The crucial point is that despite this knowledge, the same patterns repeat.
Humanity’s enemy is not aliens. Humanity’s enemy is selfish humans themselves. Throughout our lives, have we not casually rejected things simply because of our own beliefs, or because we believed our beliefs were right? And if this behavior is part of human history, can we truly say it is right?
We must seriously reflect on our current actions and attitudes, not only through the film ‘District 9’ but also by looking back at humanity’s past history, for the sake of humanity’s future. I also believe we must contemplate what thoughts and actions we should adopt going forward.
