Tsotsi (2005)

The most outstanding feature of the past year in South African cinema is indeed Gavin Hood's Tsotsi. An South Africa/Great Britain co-production, Tsotsi, made history at the 2005 Edinburgh Film festival by becoming the first film in more than seven years to win both the Standard Life Audience Award for most popular film, and the Michael Powell Award for Best Film. The film, directed by Gavin Hood, has thus far won Audience Choice awards at five of the six international festivals it has entered.

The latest triumph is the People's Choice Award at the Starz Denver International Film Festival, where Tsotsi was joint winner along with Mrs Henderson Presents.

This follows a win at the St. Louis International Film Festival in Washington. Previous wins were at the Los Angeles AFI Film Festival (joint winner with Canada's C.R.A.Z.Y), Toronto International Film Festival and Edinburgh.

Ironically, Tsotsi did not get the main prize at the Cape Town World Cinema Festival in November 2005 although it clinched the Critics Jury Award for Best South African Film, and lead actor Presley Chweneyagae winning the Best Actor award.

On 15 November Tsotsi was nominated for the European Film Academy Non-European Film 2005 - Prix Screen International.

Based on the only novel written by Athol Fugard, the film brilliantly depicts the story of a young boy orphaned at the age of nine and forced to fight his way to adulthood alone in the townships of Johannesburg. In this harsh world he inhabits, Tsotsi lives forever in the moment. An impromptu car jacking resulting in the accidental kidnapping of an infant, and forces him to confront his own humanity. The film is an emotive and very powerful journey in which the central character learns to confront the demons of his past while also coming to terms with the reality of his own destiny. In the process director Gavin Hood looks at a large part of South African society which has been left on the margin of the new post-apartheid society where class differences, also between blacks, are becoming more of a reality. Tsotsi has been submitted as South Africa's official entry in the foreign film category for the 2006 Academy Awards en let's hope we will finally be able to celebrate in 2006.

Fmovies: This traces a few days in the life of the teenage gang leader Tsotsi. When we first meet him, he and his friends are playing dice, deciding what to do that evening. And what they do is murder a man, stealing his wallet and leaving him behind on the train. One of the gang, Boston, isn't too happy with this. He begins to drink and to talk about how they lack decency. He tries to provoke Tsotsi into revealing some sort of feeling, asking him about his real name. Tsotsi means thug, it isn't the name his mother gave him. That doesn't work, so Boston asks has any woman hurt him. Still no reaction. Not even a dog, he pleads in exasperation, and his provocation bears fruit, as Tsotsi punches and kicks Boston in a brutal attack before running off into the night.

As he runs we get a flashback of a young boy, a young Tsotsi fleeing through the night. And throughout the rest of the film Tsotsi's childhood memories are intercut with the current happenings and violence. To say anymore about the plot would be to spoil some moments of the film.

There is a wonderful mixture of stillness, silence, and energy to this film. At times the camera lingers on faces, watching for a flicker of emotion. Other scenes are full of action and movement.

This is a film that does say that poverty is a driving force behind crime, but that is never allowed to become an excuse. There are other characters who are just as poor but do not react in the same way. It also never glamourises the violence, and while redemption may be at the heart of the film it never goes over the top in offering a happy ending.

This is actually one of those films you hope may have a Hollywood ending, where they can all live happily ever after, even though you know that that would render the rest of the film almost pointless.

Normally, I am reluctant to slam another person's comments about a film, but I have to take issue with Noel-74. First of all, the arrogance of comments like, "You've got to be a complete idiot to believe you're seeing something new" takes me back to the self-important little twerps of my undergraduate days. So, Noel-74, if you are an undergraduate, my apologies. Let's hope it's just a stage you're working through. If you're over the of 25, please stay clear. I mean, seriously, your comment that there was something sinister in making abject poverty look so beautiful. Can any person look at the scenes depicted in that movie and feel anything other than horror at the conditions in which so many of our brothers and sisters live? Not to get all touchy-feely on you, but if you came away from that movie thinking about how beautiful it all looked, I'd say it was you, and not the movie, that could use a little more introspection. I liked this movie a lot. I thought it was moving, chilling, depressing and unpredictable. Even the ending (NO SPOILERS HERE) could have gone a bunch of different ways, several of which would have been more conventional than what we are left with. A very good film, with excellent acting.

Tsotsi fmovies. It's almost unfortunate that this 2005 South African film was made after Fernando Meirelles' brutalizing 2003 "City of God" as the latter film really sets the cinematic standard for portraying harsh urban nihilism on screen. Instead of Rio's favelas, we now have the Soweto shantytowns as the geographic focal point. And instead of the unrelenting visceral intensity of the Brazilian film, director-writer Gavin Hood presents a story that begins with a fearsome veracity but unfortunately settles for a more conventional sense of plot structure and character development.

Based on a 1960 novel by Athol Fugard, the story concerns the title character, a teenage ruffian who heads up a gang of four in post-apartheid South Africa. A robbery-turned-stabbing in a subway triggers a lot of unwanted questions for Tsotsi about his past among his fellow gang members. He almost kills his best friend Boston before running away and finding a carjacking opportunity. Violence yet again erupts in this episode, but the surprise is that he finds a baby in the backseat of the car he stole. From that point, the baby becomes a catalyst for Tsotsi's humanistic character transformation, including an initially tense relationship with Miriam, a young widow and mother whom he seeks out to feed the baby.

For a film that starts out with such unblinking grittiness, it is surprising and a bit sad to see it evolve into an increasingly sentimental journey even with the jagged edge of violence present throughout. Some scenes, especially toward the last half-hour including an unnecessary flashback, come across as particularly mawkish, even though the ending does generate genuine tension. In his film debut, Presley Chweneyagae is impressive as Tsotsi, even when the script calls for his character to go through some awfully quick changes in short order. Terry Pheto is certainly a becalming presence as Miriam, though it is unclear to me whether the young woman has the welfare of Tsotsi or the baby as her priority. The other gang members are portrayed with acuity - Mothusi Magano as the cerebral Boston, Kenneth Nkosi as the befuddled follower Aap, and Zenzo Ngqobe as the aptly named Butcher.

The one aspect that deserves unequivocal praise is Lance Brewer's stunning cinematography which captures the burnished landscape of the shantytowns in vibrant detail. There are several extras with the 2006 DVD that are worth checking out, beginning with Hood's informative commentary and an intriguing 1998 short he made called "The Storekeeper". There are several deleted scenes included, but the most interesting are two variations on the final minutes of the film (Hood chose correctly in my opinion). A lively music video of the movie's propulsive opening song, "Mdlwembe" by Zola, is also included. It's necessary to use the English subtitle option since the characters are speaking a local dialect called Tsotsi-Taal.

Tsotsi tells the story of a tiny fraction of current township life, contrasting to a pretty normal upper middle class family in SA. It's a story about people, love, life, the choices we make, and situations we are sometimes pushed into. Gavin told it like it is (even though he's living in LA, as a talented professional he has no choice), he still remains a boertjie,(local boy), This is our story, 80% of the Art dept live in the townships, and us Umlungus (Whities) depended on our guys to bring across the authenticity of the township life. The direction is superb, I have had the opportunity to work with Gavin before, so this was a dream come true. The combination of Kwaito and Score was masterfully put together. And for what it's worth, Ian Roberts (white cop) really speaks in vernacular. I am proud to have worked on Tsotsi. Though sad, it is full of hope as well. Proudly South African.

A Jo'burg resident myself it was great to see Jo'burg on screen in one hot film. I mean to often I get excited by seeing the Jo'burg skyline on the big screen and then I am sadly disappointed by the following weak film, not in this case. A great film with a great cast and great direction. Yes there are similarities to "City of God" but the story is much smaller and hence more personal; maybe it's because I live in Johannesburg but I found myself so emotionally caught up in the film that more then once I had to hold back tears.

Maybe there were some obvious uses of cinematic dramatic vices, yet the film held together all the way to the end and packed a serious punch. The lead actor was brilliant in his role which teetered between the victim and the aggressor constantly and consequently good and evil. A great cameo performance by Presley Chweneyagae. As a near graduate of South African film school this gives me hope for the cinematic future of our country.