Tsotsi
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Movie Reviews of Tsotsi
Movie Review: Accepting responsibility
Summary: 5 Stars
Intrigued by this film's trailer (which I saw several times), I finally rented it, and was very pleasantly surprised. It was not what I'd expected, and had the added advantage of resting on the firm foundation of an Athol Fugard novel. I've seen several Fugard plays (including Master Harold...and the Boys, 1987; and Blood Knot, 1964) and have always found his work excellent.
Presley Chweneygae gives an outstanding performance as Tsotsi, a Soweto hooligan who thinks nothing of committing theft and murder, which for him are all in a night's work with his three followers, Soekie (Thembi Nyandeni), Butcher (Zenzo Ngqobe) and Boston (Mothusi Magano). The last of these is the most recent recruit, and he gets sick when Butcher silently murders a businessman in a packed subway car, with an ice pick. When the car empties of passengers at the last stop, the men steal their victim's wallet and run.
Boston, though, won't have it. While they sip their beer back at their usual hangout--he lambastes Tsotsi for his lack of conscience. Doesn't he have any respect, Boston asks. Tsotsi's response: to beat Boston's face to a pulp and run out alone in the rain. There, while fleeing from Soweto into the main town, Tsotsi experiences the first of many flashbacks. In this one, he remembers fleeing as a child along the same path, also in the rain, towards a large stack of abandoned water main pipes piled outside Soweto. As he approaches, he sees today's street kids, living on their own in the same way he once did. Only later do we learn the details of his flight from home.
But with this remembrance of his early life Tsotsi begins to move towards conscience; but it takes his shooting a young woman, Pumla Dube (Nambitha Mpumlwana), as she returns home with her grocers and waits at her driveway entrance for her husband to open their gate to push his transition into high gear. Tsotsi steals her car to get away, leaving her to die in the street, and several miles out of town, is shocked to hear the woman's infant son crying in the back seat. Tsotsi skids to a crash halt, packs up the groceries, unfastens the baby's car seat restraints, puts him in the grocery bag and heads home.
Suddenly, he has responsibility. And suddenly, he remembers the comfort of his mother's love. He remembers her illness, his father's angry control over her and him, his life when he was called David, and the pain of having to choose between loosing his mother and staying with a father so brutal that he broke the spine of David's dog's with one kick.
Of course, Tsotsi arrives at accepting responsibility for what he has done, along with whatever punishment he has coming, only after twisting and turning along a ragged journey that first brings him to apologize to his friend Boston, to Miriam (Terry Pheto), the woman he coerced into breast feeding the child, to a crippled old man he had abused, and ultimately to the people he hurt most.
This process gratifies viewers with a sense of Tsotsi's moral triumph, against all odds. But that does not come without tragedy--true tragedy, the result of poor human choices, and the pain of Tsotsi and his victims. Moreover, for all his welcomed remorse, Tsotsi is hardly exonerated. The film embraces ethics, and encourages personal responsibility. A winner, despite the tragic losses portrayed.
--Alyssa A. Lappen
Movie Review: Hardcore Realism and Poetic Grace Make TSOTSI a Cinematic Masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
It takes a masterful touch to achieve in a film gripping unsympathetic realism and inspiring poetic surrealism but that's exactly what director Gavin Hood does in TSOTSI. As we watch the title character (performed with amazing complexity by Presley Chweneyagae) and his friends head out for an evening of juvenile mayhem at this movie's beginning, we understand immediately the brutal hardcore conditions that rule their lives and possibly drive them to commit the horrors they do.
Despite that, it seems impossible to show them any compassion when we witness how brazenly they murder a man for his wallet on a crowded subway and how Tsotsi shoots a woman in front of her home then drives off in her car. The key word in that last sentence is "seems" because this intricately written and beautifully photographed movie is filled with more than a few twists in plot, fate, and emotion.
In the world of Tsotsi and his friends, the word "decency" is considered a fancy intellectual term that has neither meaning nor relevance. And the name "Tsotsi" is really not a name at all but a term describing a street thug or criminal. Nothing about the Tsotsi we first meet leads us to believe he would care about discovering an infant in the back seat of the car he has stolen. It would appear more in character if he simply left the child for the police to find. He instead does the unthinkable and takes it with him. The scenes that follow are often as laugh-out-loud comical as they are heartbreakingly tragic.
One can't help pitying him when Tsotsi uses an old newspaper in his attempt to change the baby's diaper and then detest him again when he forces a woman named Miriam (acted with convincing sensitivity by Terry Pheto) at gunpoint to breastfeed the child. It is, however, through the infant and Miriam that Tsotsi begins to reconnect with a healing sense of his own humanity and to reclaim the innocence lost to him as a child who ran away to escape his mother's illness and his father's cruelty. His extraordinary transformation from nightmare hellion to angelic thug unfolds through a series of strange encounters, shocking events, and surprising revelations. The question is whether or not the healing comes too late.
Tsotsi is based on the 1980 novel by Athol Fugard, the South African author most noted for such plays as "Blood Knot" and "Master Harold...and the Boys," which scrutinize the dehumanizing impact of apartheid segregation. Director Gavin Hood moves the book's storyline up to modern times and gives his audience a cinematic interpretation filled with the energetic hip hop music known as "kwaito" and the vibrant colors of South African urban life. The end result is a work of hardcore realism and poetic grace that serves as a compelling portrait not only of the extreme challenges facing many in South Africa's cities but of those facing people in many urban environments throughout the world in 2008.
by Author-Poet Aberjhani
author of The American Poet Who Went Home Again
and co-author of ELEMENTAL, The Power of Illuminated Love
Movie Review: The Baby Savior
Summary: 5 Stars
Priscilla Bejarano
The book was ghetto. At the beginning I was shocked of how poor everyone is. I cant believe tsotsi shot the babys mother and now she can never walk again. I felt bad for her. When tsotsi had that baby in his hands, that was a sign. I think it was a gift from God so he was able to change his ways and stop killing everyone. Oh my god I felt so bad about the crippled guy that couldn't walk. I thought tsotsi was literally going to kill him. I was about to cry. I liked the version of the movie definitely more than the book. I hate the way they describe everything in the book. I preferred watching the movie than the book. In the book it says for example that tsotsi changed the babys diaper and put a shirt instead like in the movie he put a newspaper on the baby. I was putting myself in tsotsi position afterwards he was getting so attached to david. The baby had nothing to do with anything. Tsotsi's parents were..well at least his father was an abuser, but his mother looked like a good mom she really wanted to be with her son. And where he was raised had a lot to do with how he acted and how he became a thug. Butcher was already crazy. He just wanted to kill everyone he could lay his eyes on. Tsotsi knew there was no more friendship continuance with him. Boston is the smart one which did actually have decency and had the courage to stand up to tsotsi and tell him how he felt when they were all at that bar. Miriam told tsotsi that her husband went to work and never came back. I think she has such an innocent soul. And such a good mother, for a moment I think tsotsi was thinking about his mother when he will go to Miriam's house to breastfeed david. The story's fiction but in the setting it was in Africa where so many people are poor and its overpopulated. When tsotsi kidnapped the baby, he didn't know what he was doing at first, he was feeding david condensed milk, and then ants were all on top of him. Miriam took david in her arms but begged tsotsi to take the baby back. She watched the new and found out that david was a kidnapped baby. And that the baby's mother could never walk again. It was super sweet how instead of tsotsi taking jewelry like butcher did, he was taking baby formula and teddy bears. Butcher had to be killed because he was so close to kill david's father. Luckily tsosti saved the fathers life, just because of the baby. But the fat guy, Aap was only eating in the moment. Tsosti apologized to boston and told him he'll help him finish school, so that's why he stole the Mercedes. Before the whole incident with the baby, tsotsi was a different person. He was evil. He has no heart, or decency as boston would say. The book has so much details comparing to the movie. I guess they wanted to make the book more edible in order for everyone to be able to read it. The crippled guy said he wanted to live as long as he can see the sunshine and warmness on his face. I think the old guy was sweet. And even if he wasn't rich or couldn't get his way around easily, he was friendly to be people who wouldn't pick on him. Tsosti gave him some money before getting on the train to give back David.
Movie Review: Tsotsi Film Review
Summary: 5 Stars
Tsotsi was the perfect example of how some of the misguided youth around the world can live a life of crime and no morality. Tsotsi was the leader of his small gang, which was made up of four including the main character Tsotsi. Die Aap was the quite one in the group that just agreed with whatever decision being made and went with the flow of the group. Butcher was the `hothead' the one who was quick to resort to violence. Boston is the drunken intellect that was in the slums due to his alcohol addiction. Tsotsi and his gang make a living stealing and on one night when they were ganging up on this man in a subway for his wallet `Butcher' went to far and murdered him with his ice pick. This mad everyone in the group a little uncomfortable, especially Boston that decided to go on a drunken tirade lecturing Tsotsi about the concept of decency. Unfortunately, Boston's lecturing led to him getting a beat down courtesy of Tsotsi. I loved how the gang had its balance of characters, the hot head, the silent leader, the talkative know-it-all and the follower.
After Tsotsi was banned from the bar, because of what he did to Boston, he ran to stake out a home in a near by high class neighborhood. After just waiting a few minutes a woman came to the gat of the home and stepped out of her vehicle and that's when Tsotsi decided to steal her car but not without shooting her in the stomach when she tried to stop him. Tsotsi shooting of the woman was a ridiculous decision to make, there was no need to shoot her, he could have just pushed her out of the car and driven away. He suddenly stopped the vehicle due to the cry of a baby in the backseat of the car, Tsotsi in shock from this discovery decided to place the baby in a paper bag and take him back to his house. Tsotsi did many strange things to this child, because of his lack of knowledge on how to take care a baby. He left it sleeping in the paper bag, he gave him homemade diapers from newspaper and he fed the baby condensed milk which made the baby perfect bait for eager ants. Tsotsi abduction of the child made him a wanted man, the babies parents were on a non stop search for their missing son. Fortunately, Tsotsi found help from a new mother in town that provided the baby with the proper nutrition from her breast milk.
Tsotsi reunite his gang and decided to go rob the house from which the baby was from in order to get supplies to care for the baby. In an unfortunate incident in the robbery Tsotsi was forced to shoot his hot headed partner Butcher, because he was about to kill their hostage after Tsotsi told him not to. After all this chaos Tsotsi made the decision to return the baby back to his family. However, in the transaction the police showed up and arrested Tsotsi in a very dramatic fashion. In my opinion, the ending of the film was terrible, I would have preferred Tsotsi getting away rather than getting arrested, because the only reason he was arrested was because he decided to stand outside the home with the baby forever.
Movie Review: It's amazing what reaches a gang leaders heart.
Summary: 5 Stars
`Tsotsi' is one gorgeous and thrilling film. Not only is it a first-rate piece of storytelling, but it also takes the viewer into a world of South African poverty and crime that one might not know existed. Director/writer Gavin Hood offers us a tale of tragic redemption and uncommon poetry in a subculture of the most abject immorality.
The actors here were phenomenal and their performances were both realistic and believable. Natural talented Presley Chweneyagae , as Tsotsi, is not just physically charismatic, but the changes in his voice are gripping in communicating the extreme range of feelings he experiences over the few days the film takes place. This is a road trip through his soul, from flash backs to existential acts from his depths to finding his humanity (and his real name). His relationship with a cruelly accidental foundling infant has no comparison to the dozens of films, usually comedies, made around the world about an irresponsible guy stuck with a kid and how a child can be father to man. While his picaresque physical and psychic journey is almost as theatrical in its coincidences as "Crash", the tension is built up as it is unpredictable in each confrontation whether he will react violently or redemptive.
Just when I thought his side kicks were indifferent, even they turned out to have complicated stories that were well portrayed, particularly Mothusi Magano as "Boston".Terry Pheto as "Miriam" is the very essence of a woman who shows artistic talent, strength and nourishment in her role. It is rare to see maternal love so powerfully portrayed onto a film.
The music embedded in here is strong and goes perfect with this picture. There were times I would playback a scene so I can rehear the music samples. After watching this film I was able to grab hold of the soundtrack. The tracks were put together by local South African's. The artist who are particularly outstanding are the tracks by local Kwaito artist Zola which uniquely combine local and international hip hop into a new sound, as well as tracks with the inspiring voice of Vasi Mahlasela over choirs, which recalls Ladysmith Black Mambazo. With an attention to detail in the music, the middle class family listens to soft R & B on their car radio, in comparison to the township sound that surrounds the Soweto residents.
The subtitles are well done throughout and translated musical lyrics, even as we can occasionally pick out some Pidgin English amidst the township jive. In the end, this crime film is a morality play about sin and love. `Tsotsi' shows a powerful statement about the transforming nature of guilt. This is truly a must see. I also highly recommend 'City of God.'