Peter Jackson with District 9
Courtesy of TriStar Pictures
Uploaded from Wikipedia
With the film’s setting in Johannesburg, the issue of apartheid immediately comes to mind while watching the Neill Blomkamp directed and Peter Jackson produced film of District 9. However, a historical perspective makes it very clear that the alien and human conflict is a modern retelling of what humans have done to their fellow humans as civilizations have come and gone over thousands of years.
Furthermore, District 9 raises vivid images and societal problems that are familiar to Filipinos, especially those who live in the Metro Manila area, such as the dumping sites of garbage, shanties, relocation, discrimination, violence, gang wars, illegal weapons, etc., which makes it quite difficult to immerse oneself into the supposedly fictional world of District 9.
However, in the end, I conceded the brilliance of taking familiar yet difficult subjects and recycling them into a more palatable story line, which may achieve far more than taking reality and presenting it in all its grittiness. I resolved that, as a storyteller, to take a closer look at what’s happening in my own backyard and see if there’s a way to recreate it in an untried way.
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