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*It might not appear odd that the Australian director Peter Jackson (“The Lord of the Rings” trilogy and “King Kong”) is the producer of the explosive sci-fi “District 9.” Aliens who landed in South Africa in “District 9” aren’t the only vexing issue facing the country.
But the menacing Nigerians who devour body parts also compound this debacle. Director Neill Blomkamp says he saw a void in South Africa’s cinema when it came to science fiction. “I was a science fiction nut growing up in Jo’Burg (Johannesburg) and I realized that I hadn’t seen science fiction in Africa before,” says Blomkamp, who is also responsible for the screenplay.
I asked the star of the film, Sharlto Copley, to address a statement he had made about South Africans. “In South Africa, we have to deal with issues that generally people around the world try to sweep under the rug,” Copley commented. Grilled about the issue, he went on to explain that they were cultural.
“Cultural differences and value differences, I think, are the biggest challenges that people face in any country. You try not to talk about the things that you really differ on. You know, if you believe that it’s fine to have 10 wives and I believe that it isn’t, we try to sort of not talk about that one because it just creates tension. So you just try and focus on the positive side and try to focus on common values. That’s certainly what South Africa was able to do to allow that kind of decision to happen in 1994, the kind of peaceful transition to democracy. It was about focusing a little bit more and also creating a space for the painful stuff to come out; things like the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
“In it’s most boiled down distilled level, I think it’s really just the idea of two groups, two races kind of meeting one another head on and one group oppressing the other one directly and indirectly. I think a lot of it is subconscious,” Blomkamp says. The animosity between the Africans in the film is very cognizant. “There are two parts to South Africa’s history,” Blomkamp continued. “There’s the part that everybody knows which is, you know, the white oppression over the black majority. But then there’s the second thing that’s happening now which I wanted to include in the film. The situation of the millions of Zimbabwean immigrants and the impoverished blacks of South Africa reached its critical point while we were filming in 2008. I don’t know if you saw the news, about the lynchings, burnings and machete attacks but it was seriously violent stuff that happened.”
More disturbing than the aliens who wanted to return home are the scenes of Nigerians eating body parts. Called upon to describe the cannibalistic scenes, Blomkamp noted that putting the Nigerians into a setting where they are involved in a crime syndicate, “South Africans would instantly think that was absolutely accurate and completely hilarious. That is exactly how South Africa is. For all of downtown Jo’Burg it’s Nigerian occupied and most of the violent crime in Jo’Burg stems from the central area around Hillbron where huge Nigerian gangs own and control a lot of the ins and outs of how the city works. There are lots of African witch doctors and voodoo. In South Africa that practice or idea of consuming body parts and stuff has powerful results. So it’s something that I put in there because it is African and it is part of South Africa’s makeup but I walk that fine line knowing that a North American population may or may not get it. So it’s authentic to South Africa and it’s authentic to West Africa but the audiences are going to take from it what they will I guess.”
A kinder and gentler sci-fi film, “The Time Traveler’s Wife,,” also opens this week at theaters. The Film Strip asked its stars Eric Bana and Rachel McAdams what time would they like to travel back to? “I think the 50s,” Bana said because he thought a time before he was born would be “more magical.” McAdams concurred, commenting, “Yeah, I would like to go back to the ‘good old days.’ I would like to see my parents fall in love.”
The two said the life of actors is somewhat a metaphor for “The Time Traveler’s Wife” because actors are like gypsies, never in one place long. “It was really important to root the film in something that we could relate to and that the audience could relate to and not this sort of intangible thing, or this fantastical concept,” McAdams explained. “That’s something we spent a lot of time thinking about in the rehearsal process; talking about longing and waiting and separation and how that obstacle is so relevant in so many relationships and so many people are overcoming that everyday. We tried to step away from time travel because I think flying an airplane is the closest we have. Eric can attest to a little bit of time travel, being from Australia, but that’s about all we have.”
Getting a bit philosophical about destiny and the road one travels, Bana suggested there is a common denominator when it comes to fate and choice. “You’ve got to be proactive about your destiny. Realize that the other half is completely out of your control but own . I do believe in reading signs if they’re really obvious to you. Something happens in the morning and then someone mentions it that evening and then it happens again the next morning. There’s a reason why three people have said something within 24 hours.”
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