Post by Derrick on Apr 24, 2010 6:46:38 GMT -5
TSOTSI
2005
Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa
Produced by Peter Fudakowski
Directed by Gavin Hood
Screenplay by Gavin Hood based on the novel by Athol Fugard
There is an infinity of things to marvel about when it comes to babies but I think one of the most marvelous and wonderful things is the ability of a baby to transform people. Babies make us want to be better people, if for no other reason than they turn those huge eyes on us, eyes filled with trust and for most of us, that’s all it takes. TSOTSI is about the redemption of a frighteningly brutal and vicious young man whose spirit has been broken and how a baby is the catalyst for his spiritual reawakening. TSOTSI won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film the year of it’s release. Not having seen a whole lot of Foreign Language Films this year I can’t say how the competition stacked up against TSOTSI but I have a hard time thinking that any one of them was better than this one. On the surface it’s a simple story but there are so many other things going on so many different levels that when the movie is over and you turn it over in your head you realize that it was quite profound.
Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae) lives in Soweto, a community of ragged shacks in the shadow of the gleaming skyscrapers of Johannesburg. Tsotsi is a career criminal and not a particularly good one but what he lacks in planning and intelligence he makes up for in horrific violence. Along with his small gang of three he commits crimes that have more to do with providing an outlet for the volcanic rage in his soul than anything else. They certainly don’t do anything with the money they steal other than get high, get drunk, pass out and wake up the next day to repeat the cycle. Tsotsi is an enigma to his friends. Tsotsi isn’t even his real name. It means ‘thug’. He certainly lives up to the title.
One day a robbery goes really wrong and a man is killed. Later on his friend Boston (Mothusi Magano) demands to know how he feels about what they did and demands to know where Tsoti’s soul is, where his decency is. Boston touches a nerve and Tsotsi brutally beats him into unconsciousness and then walks away with hardly a backwards look. During his lonely walk he finds himself in a gated community and on a sudden impulse, steals a car from a woman who cannot get her garage gate to open and is talking to her husband on the intercom. The woman fights back, Tsotsi shoots her, then steals her Mercedes and he’s miles away before he realizes why the woman fought back so savagely: there’s a baby boy in the back seat.
It never occurs to Tsotsi to leave the baby in a hospital or an orphanage. He’s so used to taking and keeping what he wants that he keeps the baby. Now, if you’ve been paying attention you’ll realize that Tsotsi is the last person in the world who should have a baby and indeed, even though he tries his best to care for child (one amusing scene has him making a makeshift diaper out of newspaper) it isn’t long before he realizes that he’s out of his depth. In desperation he forces a young mother (Terry Pheto) to breastfeed the baby at gunpoint. The young mother seems to see something in the desperation that this savage young man has towards caring for the child and offers to continue to feed and clean the baby for him. Naturally Tsotsi is suspicious but there’s something about the simple and dignified way this young woman lives her life that reminds him dimly of his own mother and he agrees.
Meanwhile the baby’s mother has survived the shooting and has given the police a description of Tsotsi and a pair of determined detectives are on the case. Drawings of Tsotsi are being circulated in Soweto and it’s only a matter of time before somebody decides to cash in on the reward offered. It’s a dangerous situation that seems to have only one way it can end since Tsotsi is determined to keep the baby at any and all costs.
I really enjoyed the way TSOTSI told its story. The cinematography is quite beautiful and it’s a pleasure to see there’s a director who knows how to leave a camera still for longer for thirty seconds. I’ve gotten so weary of the manic camerawork that seems to be the norm for most movies nowadays that it was pleasure to watch a movie that actually took time to linger on faces and people and objects. Scenes are allowed to play themselves out without frantic, jumpy editing. The acting is just marvelous. These are faces we’ve never seen before and so we don’t have the familiar Hollywood faces getting in the way of the story being told and it’s a great story. There are scenes of great pain and anguish, such as a scene where Tsotsi encounters a tribe of children living in huge concrete construction pipes and another where Tsotsi encounters a crippled man and honestly wants to know what motivates the man to go on living. One scene involving the baby and some ants will definitely have you cringing and may make you turn away from the screen. But there’s also scenes of humor, such as the running joke where one of Tsotsi’s friends continually loses at shooting craps because he can’t count and Tsotsi carrying around the baby everywhere in a shopping bag that must be made out of titanium.
So should you see TSOTSI? You certainly should. It’s a welcome change from your usual Hollywood diet and if for nothing else, it’s a fascinating look into another world and another culture many of us don’t even know exists. It’s got terrific performances and a great story told with exceptional humanity and spirit.
94 minutes
Rated R for language and strong violent content.
2005
Industrial Development Corporation of South Africa
Produced by Peter Fudakowski
Directed by Gavin Hood
Screenplay by Gavin Hood based on the novel by Athol Fugard
There is an infinity of things to marvel about when it comes to babies but I think one of the most marvelous and wonderful things is the ability of a baby to transform people. Babies make us want to be better people, if for no other reason than they turn those huge eyes on us, eyes filled with trust and for most of us, that’s all it takes. TSOTSI is about the redemption of a frighteningly brutal and vicious young man whose spirit has been broken and how a baby is the catalyst for his spiritual reawakening. TSOTSI won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film the year of it’s release. Not having seen a whole lot of Foreign Language Films this year I can’t say how the competition stacked up against TSOTSI but I have a hard time thinking that any one of them was better than this one. On the surface it’s a simple story but there are so many other things going on so many different levels that when the movie is over and you turn it over in your head you realize that it was quite profound.
Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae) lives in Soweto, a community of ragged shacks in the shadow of the gleaming skyscrapers of Johannesburg. Tsotsi is a career criminal and not a particularly good one but what he lacks in planning and intelligence he makes up for in horrific violence. Along with his small gang of three he commits crimes that have more to do with providing an outlet for the volcanic rage in his soul than anything else. They certainly don’t do anything with the money they steal other than get high, get drunk, pass out and wake up the next day to repeat the cycle. Tsotsi is an enigma to his friends. Tsotsi isn’t even his real name. It means ‘thug’. He certainly lives up to the title.
One day a robbery goes really wrong and a man is killed. Later on his friend Boston (Mothusi Magano) demands to know how he feels about what they did and demands to know where Tsoti’s soul is, where his decency is. Boston touches a nerve and Tsotsi brutally beats him into unconsciousness and then walks away with hardly a backwards look. During his lonely walk he finds himself in a gated community and on a sudden impulse, steals a car from a woman who cannot get her garage gate to open and is talking to her husband on the intercom. The woman fights back, Tsotsi shoots her, then steals her Mercedes and he’s miles away before he realizes why the woman fought back so savagely: there’s a baby boy in the back seat.
It never occurs to Tsotsi to leave the baby in a hospital or an orphanage. He’s so used to taking and keeping what he wants that he keeps the baby. Now, if you’ve been paying attention you’ll realize that Tsotsi is the last person in the world who should have a baby and indeed, even though he tries his best to care for child (one amusing scene has him making a makeshift diaper out of newspaper) it isn’t long before he realizes that he’s out of his depth. In desperation he forces a young mother (Terry Pheto) to breastfeed the baby at gunpoint. The young mother seems to see something in the desperation that this savage young man has towards caring for the child and offers to continue to feed and clean the baby for him. Naturally Tsotsi is suspicious but there’s something about the simple and dignified way this young woman lives her life that reminds him dimly of his own mother and he agrees.
Meanwhile the baby’s mother has survived the shooting and has given the police a description of Tsotsi and a pair of determined detectives are on the case. Drawings of Tsotsi are being circulated in Soweto and it’s only a matter of time before somebody decides to cash in on the reward offered. It’s a dangerous situation that seems to have only one way it can end since Tsotsi is determined to keep the baby at any and all costs.
I really enjoyed the way TSOTSI told its story. The cinematography is quite beautiful and it’s a pleasure to see there’s a director who knows how to leave a camera still for longer for thirty seconds. I’ve gotten so weary of the manic camerawork that seems to be the norm for most movies nowadays that it was pleasure to watch a movie that actually took time to linger on faces and people and objects. Scenes are allowed to play themselves out without frantic, jumpy editing. The acting is just marvelous. These are faces we’ve never seen before and so we don’t have the familiar Hollywood faces getting in the way of the story being told and it’s a great story. There are scenes of great pain and anguish, such as a scene where Tsotsi encounters a tribe of children living in huge concrete construction pipes and another where Tsotsi encounters a crippled man and honestly wants to know what motivates the man to go on living. One scene involving the baby and some ants will definitely have you cringing and may make you turn away from the screen. But there’s also scenes of humor, such as the running joke where one of Tsotsi’s friends continually loses at shooting craps because he can’t count and Tsotsi carrying around the baby everywhere in a shopping bag that must be made out of titanium.
So should you see TSOTSI? You certainly should. It’s a welcome change from your usual Hollywood diet and if for nothing else, it’s a fascinating look into another world and another culture many of us don’t even know exists. It’s got terrific performances and a great story told with exceptional humanity and spirit.
94 minutes
Rated R for language and strong violent content.