Infância Roubada

TSOTSI (2005) Set in South Africa, against a background of inequality and HIV, Tsotsi (played by Presley Chweneyagae), an unemotional small-time gang leader, develops an understanding of, and tries to grasp, family, belonging and caring for others. The unlikely catalyst for his redemption is a baby he finds in the back of a car he steals.

Director Gavin Hood engages our empathy and challenges our prejudices without stooping to Hollywood sentimentality. The film is filled with muted colours, swelling to golden tones as Tsotsi discovers his emotions.

The story's secondary theme is the understated but powerful role of women, typified by Terry Pheto as Miriam. She cares and nurtures, and makes beauty out of very little, including mobiles from broken glass; she quietly challenges the male-generated violence of the film.

By the end of the film the audience is moved by, and involved in, the narrative, and our awareness of the complexity of South African society is extended. This includes the soundtrack, featuring township music and a cameo role by Kwaito star Zola, the sparse dialogue in many languages, for which English subtitles are not obtrusive, and the scene-setting affluent and township locations. Tsotsi is a very convincing winner of the 2006 Oscar for Best Foreign Film.

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.

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.

For South Africans, both resident and in exile, this film is likely to be a harrowing experience. It shows us some of the consequences of what we allowed to be done in our name.

Cinematically, the film is superb, partly because it is so understated. It is probably an insight into a way of life all to common in African metropolises. Whilst it shows the way of life in shanty towns and was, I know, filmed in authentic locations, I found myself wondering whether the coloring was just a bit rosy, but that is a very minor criticism.

The director has coaxed a performance from his lead actor which is, I think, a landmark. So much of the performance is visual - he says very little. He is supported by a bevy of other characters which those familiar with South Africa will recognize all to easily.

If you do not have a South African connection, see the movie as an insight into our way of life. See it because it is a story worth telling and therefore worth seeing.

Unforgettable

Tsotsi is gorgeous, riveting, poignant, and thrilling. 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 he has never seen before. Director/writer Gavin Hood offers us a tale of tragic redemption and uncommon poetry in a subculture of the most abject immorality. Truly unforgettable.

The only work in recent times to which this movie can be compared is City of God. There, too, the viewer is brought into a world of poverty and crime he probably never knew existed. It is a world so bleak that it forces the viewer to examine his own morality and wonder how much of the civility he takes for granted in his life is merely the luxury of the well fed and comfortable. These characters live on the edge and their primary passion is survival.

What makes Tsotsi, in the end, a finer film than City of God is that it offers a more complex sense of hope; it reminds us in an honest and unsentimental way that inside even the hardest cases there is a soul, which is never beyond redemption