Tsotsi DVD

Based upon Athol Fugard's 1961 novel of the same name, Tsotsi focuses not on the sixties but on contemporary South Africa, a society twelve years removed from apartheid but still facing crime, poverty, AIDS, and a huge gap between rich and poor. Supported by the energy and rhythm of South African Township music called Kwaito, Tsotsi immediately plunges us into a world of shantytowns, poverty, and cold-blooded crime. Tsotsi (Presley Chwenetagae) is a 19-year old reject, an orphaned hoodlum living in a slum across the river from the splendid high rise buildings of Johannesburg.

Together with his fellow gang members, Butcher (Zenzo Ngqobe), Aap (Kenneth Nkose), and a teacher named Boston (Mothusi Magano), he roams the streets looking for robbery victims who often end up murdered. It is only after a robbery and a shooting that he discovers the victim's infant son in the back of the car and is forced to deal with questions about decency raised by Boston. He takes the baby home in a shopping bag and tries to care for it, creating a makeshift diaper out of old newspapers and feeding it from a can of condensed milk. Confronted with the responsibility of having to care for the baby, Tsotsi follows a young woman Miriam (Terry Pheto) to her home, then orders her at gunpoint to breast-feed the infant.

Very gradually, Tsotsi is touched by her humanity and begins to recover his own. There is no epiphany, no single moment of transformation, only the gradual emergence of one man's conscience and his belated awareness of the reality of kindness and the sanctity of life. Presley Chweneyagae delivers a luminous performance in his first role and his gradual redemption, shown mostly by gesture and facial expression, is totally convincing.

on 15th May 2006
Author of 112 reviews