Chapter 190: Coincidence
"Most directors of movies about aliens have a habit of having their imaginary alien beings descend on a metropolis and cause panic and wonder. Like in War of the Worlds or Independence Day have the aliens invade Earth while humans rise up and surround their homes. And of course there are those who treat the aliens as friends and act out a warm camaraderie with the humans."
Lin Mingyang sat on the sofa with his hands clasped, looking at Nick in front of him as he talked in a manner. "But no one has ever put them in a vulnerable position, falling to Earth for some reason and then being discriminated against or even persecuted by humans. The short film I made 'Aliens in Johannesburg' is mainly about human society in this state, in fact, my original plan was to make a feature-length movie, but due to the total limitations, it could never become a reality, so this short film holds a lot of my ideas."
"You actually wanted to use the encounter of the aliens to insinuate the apartheid system in South Africa?" Lin Mingyang sat there motionless, the gleam in his eyes seemed to want to see through Nick.
His own unspoken thoughts being punctured by Lin Ming Yang in advance, Nick nodded his head quite frankly, "I went through that period and saw a lot of black people suffering from injustice. But everyone keeps their mouths shut about it now, and I think forgetting history is a betrayal."
Lin Mingyang stood up with both hands propped on his knees and walked over to Nick, the smile at the corner of his mouth blossoming without warning. Before the somewhat baffled Nick could react, he had already extended his right hand to Nick.
"Although my original intention of making this movie is different from yours, and the positions I stand for are also vastly different, the ideas we want to express through the movie are the same. On this beautiful planet, evil keeps happening all the time, never ending and never stopping, apartheid, leaning on the strong and the weak, greedy human nature, heinous mass killings, filth running rampant, refugee camps where evil thrives, and so on."
Nick's eyes flashed with a kind of excitement, because Lin Mingyang's ideas actually coincided with his, and after Lin Mingyang briefly introduced the plot of the movie, he finally understood that this movie called District 9 was ostensibly a sci-fi film, but at heart it was a satirical allegory. In Lin Ming Yang's conception, the alien is just a symbol, it is not a representation of alien beings, but a representation of different human civilizations.
Lin Mingyang's idea is further than Nick's, and he thinks about the movie, focusing not on the conquest of the alien, but on how to get along with the alien. The two men coincidentally created a marvelous tacit understanding on this issue, and Lin Mingyang immediately decided to hire Nick as a special advisor to the crew and to serve as the film's assistant director.
Upon learning that the choice of the film's leading man had not yet been determined, Nick recommended his good friend Sharlto Copley to Lin Mingyang.
Nick told Lin Ming Yang quite honestly that his friend had never acted in a movie before, but after he read the script written by Lin Ming Yang, he instinctively felt that the role of Wikus was close to his good friend Sharlto. With his strong recommendation, Lin Mingyang made agreed to let Sharlto try out a few scenes first.
----
In order to shoot the footage of the quarantined ghetto, Lin Mingyang rented more than six hundred tents from the local Red Cross in Johannesburg, and then set up a quarantine area for the aliens in the open space on the outskirts of the Sevilla refugee camp, with a fancifully drawn quarantine zone on the periphery.
The people living in the Sevilla area were basically unemployed blacks, and the crew built their sets here by hiring people nearby. Because Lin Mingyang saw that these blacks had a hard life, the salary offered was not low, in order to be able to get a temporary job, there were several clashes at the scene where the crew was recruiting, but also the people from the security company controlled the scene in time, which did not let the clashes escalate into a large-scale violent firefight.
His own good intentions but nearly caused a tragedy, this incident in addition to let Lin Mingyang living in the region of Sevilla unemployed black people have a further understanding of the survival of the situation, but also a clearer understanding of the chaotic situation in the region, in order to ensure the safety of the crew during the filming, he asked the security company to send additional manpower.
The most obvious change was that the security force around Lin Ming Yang was greatly strengthened. In the past, when he went on field trips to those tin houses in the slums, he had at most two to three bodyguards with him, but now every time he went out, he was accompanied by a small team of loaded bodyguards, and when filming in those dangerous areas, the members of the cast and crew were all asked to wear bulletproof vests.
On this day Lin Ming Yang was making his rounds on the location when the arrival of an unexpected visitor interrupted his work. When Charlize Theron, who stood playfully in front of him in tight jeans and casual denim, wearing a gray round felt hat, the first reaction in Lin Ming Yang's head was not to admire Theron's chic attire today, but to think that she was simply fooling around.
Lin Ming Yang looked at Theron with a serious expression, "Do you know what this place is?"
"I know, this is Sevilla." Charlize Theron replied with a relaxed expression, "This is the largest slum in South Africa, with over 80% of the population unemployed, and the crime rate is four times that of other places."
"Since you know all this and you still came all by yourself, do you know how dangerous it is to do so?" Lin Ming Yang made a stern face, somewhat blaming Theron.
Theron walked over and affectionately took Lin Ming Yang's arm, "Alright, I know I was wrong, I heard that you were filming over here so I rushed over. Originally, I could have waited for you over at the rented office building of your crew, but I was curious as to what exactly you were going to film here, and for a moment I couldn't hold back my curiosity, so I ran over to take a look!"
Theron had been wearing sunglasses the whole time, and it was surprising that none of the bodyguards around her recognized her as South Africa's brightest starlet. The best thing about filming in Sevilla was that there was no harassment from reporters, as the chaotic law and order of the place was daunting to reporters, so over here, Lin Ming Yang could boldly wrap his arms around Theron's slender waist, and the two of them were intimately pressed together.
"You're making a movie about refugees?" Theron's attention was attracted by the patches of white tents in the distance, but Lin Mingyang's gaze kept darting very unfaithfully towards her open low neckline.
"That's for aliens to live in!" Lin Mingyang said absentmindedly, which seemed like a bit of an answer to Theron.
"Aliens?" Theron thought Lin Ming Yang was joking, she giggled and said, "Aliens usually love to go to New York or Los Angeles, when did they like Johannesburg?"
Most of the Hollywood movies about aliens took place on American soil, and Theron was actually teasing a bit when she said that.
After a full view of Theron's chest "unlimited scenery", he finally put his eyes back, "This movie, I do shoot aliens, but from another angle to show that their spaceships broke down, a large number of aliens stranded on Earth, by the human beings as a refugee quarantine. "
"But why Johannesburg and not some other place?" Theron didn't delve into speculating about Lin Mingyang's intentions before asking her question, because this viewpoint alone, which made it customary to view aliens as potential enemies or low-level creatures, was refreshing to her.
"Because there's the most ideal filming location in the world here!" Lin Ming Yang pointed to the patches of tin houses in the distance, "Their lives on Earth, that those blacks living in the ghetto are very close."
In Lin Ming Yang's vision, this group of aliens was simply something that had an unclear relationship with humans, they did not have the slightest bit of superior status due to being from an extraterrestrial planet in the movie, but were nothing more than a group of obnoxious paupers, thugs who caused trouble all day long and affected social stability. After Lin Mingyang explained this clearly, Theron had already vaguely guessed something.
"But why isolate them?"
"Because isolation is one of the most commonly used means of dealing with various crises in modern society. Separating the bad things (people) from the good things (people) and isolating one group for the benefit of another sounds pretty good. However, once this method of handling becomes an inertia of thinking and the power to enforce segregation becomes the power of a certain group. Then the word takes on more connotations: inequality, discrimination, revulsion, panic, etc."
"To humans, aliens are mysterious. This underlying fear of the unknown has caused many people to suffer from persecution paranoia. Because physically, humans are extremely weak and powerless, unable to fight a tiger or a lion, a poisonous snake can kill us, not to mention more powerful animals. Humans rule the earth, but in their hearts they are very aware of their own weakness, and they have to rely on all sorts of add-ons to embolden themselves in order to be more at ease on the planet. When man had relatively strong control, zoos arose, circuses arose. The more fearful they became, the more they had to make a gesture of being above it all. Humans have to do the same in the presence of extraterrestrial beings who are convinced they are threatened."
"Just like the United States insisting that Iraq was harboring weapons of mass destruction?" Lin Mingyang's statement made Theron naturally associate it with the United States.
"Looks like you've already understood what I mean!" Lin Ming Yang smiled and nodded, "In fact, this group of aliens are still strong in terms of their abilities, their weapons are much more powerful and their technology is more advanced than that of humans, but they've been reduced to the refugee slums of the Earth because of their own reasons, and they make a living by robbing, scavenging for garbage, and selling their weapons for cat food to eat."
"You want to use aliens to insinuate the blacks living here?" Theron finally understood Lin Mingyang's intentions.
"This gesture of the aliens in front of the people of Earth can bring attention again to some of the problems in this world, they are serious and most people know that the problem exists but have been indifferent to its occurrence. But we've long been numb in front of news reports, and the only way to get some bouncing 'aliens' out of the camera is to pique the viewer's interest and give some insight through what happens to the aliens."
"Why is it that your head is full of such strange and bizarre ideas and you manage to come up with the unexpected every time?" Theron had never really looked through Lin Ming Yang, and it was this kind of mesmerizing feeling that made Theron indulge in this "intimate" relationship between the two of them, making it difficult for her to extricate herself.