District 9: contexts and key sequences — Eduqas GCSE Film Studies C670
Eduqas GCSE Film Studies · C670
District 9: contexts and key sequences
District 9
What you need to know
District 9 (Neill Blomkamp, 2009): aliens stranded over Johannesburg live in a slum camp, District 9; Wikus van de Merwe, the official leading their forced removal, is exposed to an alien fluid, begins to change, and is hunted until he helps the alien Christopher Johnson and his son escape.
A South African science fiction film made on a modest budget with the producer Peter Jackson.
Echoes of apartheid and the forced removals from District Six in Cape Town, and themes of xenophobia and segregation.
Key sequences to know in detail: the documentary-style opening, the eviction and finding the fluid, and the battle in the exosuit.
Cinematography and mise-en-scène: a mix of mockumentary footage (interviews, news reports, security cameras) and drama, hand-held cameras, and the shacks and rubbish of the camp.
Editing and sound: cutting between documentary and drama, digital effects that create the aliens, and African chanting with heavy percussion.
The few short lines of dialogue that matter most in these sequences, a few words each.
Short answers of the kind the first parts of the Section A question ask for: naming and describing a setting, character or moment, and explaining a choice.
How to answer each part: the marks, and what the short identify and explain parts need as well as the extended answer, since naming a technique instead of a specific example from the film loses marks there. Practice questions to try, each headed 'Practice question' with its marks.
Quote only short lines of dialogue you're sure of, a few words at a time, and base every point on what happens in the finished film.
