At its simplest, District 9 is a movie about a race of aliens who dwell amongst the people of Johannesburg, South Africa, for twenty years. Then, amidst fears that the aliens (who have basically caused no trouble) will somehow become troublesome, the government decides they must be evicted from their homes and corralled into District 10 from District 9. The private military company, MultiNational United, sends one of their desk jockeys, Wilkus van der Merwe (Sharlto Copley), in to serve the notices, and all havoc breaks out.

The film is shot in mockumentary style, and the obvious comparisons to apartheid are enormously obvious (even if you haven't read an article or seen an interview). Still, it's grossly disturbing to hear the comments that the Africans have to say about the aliens, reflecting back on the way that black Africans have been treated by white ones, as well as references that allow for comparison to the Holocaust, other war-related concentration camps, etc. But the apartheid issue isn't the only one raised here.

Honestly, I don't think this is a spoiler, but I'll warn you to stop reading if you hate this kind of thing: Merwe gets "infected" with alien juice and ends up with some transformation issues. That, to me, is even greater than the apartheid question. When Merwe starts becoming alien or "other," he's shunned by his family, he becomes hunted by MNU, and his blended blood becomes a commodity which various entities desire. But Merwe must also face that maybe the aliens (or "prawns") aren't as "other" as he thought. Merwe in fact must walk a mile in an alien's shoes.

I think that you could explore the movie from a segregation standpoint, or from a military standpoint in terms of technology, or even in a humanitarian standpoint. But it's the compassion (or lack thereof) that grabbed me, even as we're shown a highly-developed special effects flick that's some of the best science fiction that I've seen in years. But I can't separate out that the "best" of it is that it's thought-provoking. Is it entertaining? Yes. But it's entertaining in a Ray Bradbury sort of way, in a "look at your world from another angle" and see that science fiction can teach, too.

For Merwe, compassion comes at a high cost. For us, compassion came at a cost, too, with the blood of Christ on the cross. And it's the blood of Merwe that makes the issue apparent here as well. What happens if you see the "prawns" as lepers (and consider Mother Theresa) or see the aliens as HIV-infected people? What happens to your mode of thinking about an issue if one of your friends or loved ones is HIV-infected, or gay, or poor, or homeless, or "other?" Does that affect how you see the world?

When we see others as Christ sees them, as blood-cleaned humans who are just like us, the world we live in changes for the better, as our perspective changes. Change your perspective: visit District 9 today.