Tsotsi
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Movie Reviews of Tsotsi
Movie Review: Authentic from start to finish
Summary: 5 Stars
It's so great to finally see a major feature film that shows Africa from an African perspective, as opposed to through the prism of Western eyes. Another recent well-deserved Oscar winner (Best foreign language film) I just had to have in my collection; this is a violent and uncompromising look at life in a Soweto township.
Presley Cheweneyagae plays the lead, a Johannesburg small-time gangster whose nickname Tsotsi means "thug". I read somewhere that Presley was discovered playing Hamlet in a Soweto theatre group. He's a find in a million, as his performance is mesmerising.
Tsotsi finds a baby in the back of a car he's just jacked off a suburban black woman as the woman waited for the security gates outside her home to open. He doesn't do the expected and simply dump the baby at the side of the road - surprisingly, he decides to take it home and care for it. He hasn't a clue how to care for a child of course and he turns to a local woman who makes decorative mobiles from glass. She's a nursing mother herself, and - under the threat of death, mind you - Tsotsi gets her to look after the child while he goes back out there to do his thing.
It's an interesting study of how complex life is for people who don't have much and while the movie doesn't make excuses or descend into sentimentality at any point, it's engaging to gradually see the heart of the man called Tsotsi - a man who at first glance seemed utterly heartless - emerge for all to see. It's a great story, based on the novel by South African playwright Athol Fugard, and the final scenes had me (literally) on the edge of my seat the first time I watched it. Gavin Hood makes good use of Johannesburg's urban setting and the natural beauty of South Africa. I strongly recommend this movie. For anyone who might not know and who may have an interest, this is an authentic slice of African life.
Movie Review: A parabole about the young David
Summary: 5 Stars
South Africa has been and remains both a mystery and a miracle. The mystery of life after the drying out of common death. The miracle of a transformation that was led onto smooth tracks by a man who could have died in the presidential office and decided to retire in full possession of his consciousness and with quite a few years ahead for him to enjoy the brand new liberty he has enabled his country to finally discover. It is a parabole of this transformation that has to take place in the soul of every single citizen, one after the other, and all in the solitude of meditation and reflection. This happens with Tsotsi on the day when the crying of a baby reminds him of the time when he was brutalized by his own father. This crying meant his past of alienation and victimization could be cauterized and bought back to become a beacon on the road to salvation. Just let your heart speak and do something good to repair the evil you may have done or the evil one may have done to you. The hungry tears of a baby can open up the sky of a soul to reveal all the stars and the moon that are shining up there waiting for you to capture their brilliance and turn it into the energy you need to turn the page, to finally discover the value of love, the love of a baby, your love for the baby, and the deepest ever desire to transform the world by transforming yourself because history is done in the mental melting pot of our individual spiritualities and minds. Then and only then can David stand up in front of Goliath. An optimistic film among so many that are not and it all dances on the edge of a sharp blade that could turn better into worse and a miraculous epiphany into a bloody mess.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University of Paris Dauphine & University of Paris I Pantheon-Sorbonne
Movie Review: Touching-Heartbreaking-And so much More
Summary: 5 Stars
There is really no way to describe this movie excpet outstanding. One of the best movies I've ever seen. You find yourself rooting for Tsotsi despite all the bad things he has done. The movie shows that even the people that appear to be the worst criminals can have big hearts. Tsotsi simply had a string of bad luck and his troubled childhood lead him to a life of crime. Tsotsi is able to re-discover himself through the baby he steals, through a homeless man he meets, and his friend that he beats nearly to death. You will find yourself falling in love with all the characters especially Tsotsi in the movie. One would think its hard to find yourself so touched by a thug like Tsosti, but the movie makes it impossible not to feel the good intentions and the goodness Tsotsi truly holds.It's impossible not to be touched by the beauty of the film. I have always enjoyed movies about South Africa, but this one is truly a gem. Don't miss this movie or you will be disappointed. And don't worry the subtitles aren't even an issue the African language spoke in the film actually adds to the movie.
Here's a quick summary of the movie:
Tsotsi is a thug in every manner that kills, steals, and robs people because thats all he knows. He grew up living on the streets after his mother died and he ran away from home. Despite all the terrible things Tsotsi has done in his life you can constantly see his humanity. When out on one of his normal crime sprees Tsotsi shoots a woman and steals her car and discovers later that there is a baby in the backseat. He has no idea what to do with the baby or how to take care of him. The rest of the movie is about Tsosti's journey to re-discover who he truly is and while doing so he helps those around him that need help the most.
Movie Review: The powerful influence of Italian Neo Realism fifty years after!
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a touching and emotive adaptation from Athol Fugard's novel. Tsotsi, is the leader of a bunch of misfits, who live in the first stage of the social pyramid: They live in the belt of misery of Johannesburg and they try to survive stealing money here and there.
But one day, Tsotsi plans will change radically, at the moment he shoots a woman stealing her car without realizing there's a baby placed on the back seat.
This unexpected circumstance will work out as a visceral shock for him, because iot will revive many latent memories of his childhood, the presence of his ruthless father and the lack of emotive gestures: These impressions will arouse around him a sudden change of behavior.
Perhaps the most beating sequence of the film is when he returns to that house, just to watch the glamorous and joyous room of that kidnapped baby, which causes him another strong affective and emotional trauma.
Finally the redemption of this apparent cruel and renegade human being, orphan of tenderness, will make his last act of redemption.
Since the times of Pixote (the masterpiece of Hector Babenco) we had not watched such merciless portrait around the horrid affective consequences of a human being living in the razor edge of the existence. The film has many expressive highlights, in which we will witness some distorted expressions that denote that loss of emotional center.
Don't miss it!
Movie Review: From a Novel to a Striking Film
Summary: 5 Stars
"Tsotsi", a screenplay of a novel, not a true story, but yet a film of striking realism depicting the social and economic issues of a city from South Africa. It is skillfully edited and well adapted exciting film illustrating what it was a style of survival in Johannesburg's townships during the years of the apartheid system: "Tsotsi", meaning thug or a hoodlum.
It is one of the best movies I have seen in a long time representing the horrendous of the situation in which these people lived in, in an authentic and insightful way, but still controversial on its purpose of justifying the acts of a human monster and at the same time leaving him as a hope of redemption for the rest of the country. It is hard to accept this character as a product or creation of a spiteful system and not as the monster he was by his own choice. Just because a thug had encountered his humanity and his capacity to feel compassion because of a chance he had to encounter with a baby, it means that he had paid for his crimes. Under the same circumstances and pressures, there were other protagonists like the woman who was forced to breast-feed the abducted baby. She was a mother who had to fight for her own survival and also for her baby. This woman since a different perspective was able to make her living sewing and making some decorative mobiles of glass. She should be the prophetic model to offer a hope of a better future for all the South African's citizens.