District 9: Why you should step outside your comfort zone

Last week I took a big step outside my little mental box and saw District 9 with Darcy.



The premise is this: after an alien spacecraft showed up in the sky above Johannesburg in the 1980s, the aliens were moved into a segregated community outside the city that quickly became a slum. As the government and a private arms agency prepare to move the ballooning population to another community further away in response to public protest, one of the human team leaders comes in contact with a strange substance that begins to turn him into an alien.

While the change takes place, he is simultaneously hunted by the arms agency for horrifying medical testing and by a Nigerian gangster who wants to cut off and eat his alien appendages to "absorb alien power." But in exchange for the assurance that he can be changed back fully into a human by alien technology, he befriends an alien and his son who have been laboring for the past twenty years to repair a craft that will power the ship back to its original world, and then return to free his fellow aliens. The movie ends in an extended, gory fight and chase sequence, but I'll leave out the end of the story in case you don't want the plot spoiled.

Bottom line: this was not the type of movie I usually go see.

Although entirely fictional, District 9 is filmed as mockumentary. I think that's why I had such a hard time watching it, and a very visceral response to what was onscreen. It was very gory, and some of it was downright repulsive. At one point, I actually thought I was going to throw up because of what I saw. The things that were taking place were not just disgusting, they were downright appalling. The monstrousness of the humans' actions toward the aliens and the protagonist was galling. Lack of respect for life, anti-"foreign" ideas, absurdly horrendous treatment of the aliens, and stomach-turning medical testing are all part of this movie.

On the cycle back home afterward, I was uncharacteristically silent. Darcy was worried that I hated it; I just didn't know how to react. I honestly didn't know what to think about this. It has taken me nearly a week to process it because it forced me outside my comfort zone. In a BIG way.

But after allowing time for my reaction to percolate though from the physical to the emotional and intellectual, I have decided that it really is an incredible film. The subtlety of the politics was brilliant. The cinematography and special effects were superb. The lead's acting was phenomenal. I can't stop thinking about it, as uncomfortable as it was at the time. While I can't imagine ever watching it again, it was a million times more thought-provoking than I ever expected. You should really consider seeing it, both as a film and a chance to step outside your comfort zone.

Have you stepped outside your comfort zone lately? 
I mean, REALLY stepped outside your comfort zone?