Tsotsi: Directed by Gavin Hood

Tsotsi is a famous 2005 South African drama film that is written and directed by Gavin Hood and produced by Peter Roger Ebert. It is still one of my favourite films and one of the best the best this country has ever produced, in my opinion. It is thought-provoking and the cast is brilliant. It stars Presley Chweneyagae, Terry Pheto, Rapulana Seiphemo, Mothusi Magano, Kenneth Nkosi and many more. Tsotsi is a film full of deep emotional power. It considers a young killer who kills unthinkingly, whose cold eyes show no emotion and lead a gang that smashes and grabs, loots and shoots, stabs and sets out each morning to steal or destroy something. We do not even learn this young man’s real name; “tsotsi” means ‘thug” and that is what he is.

At the beginning of the film, the gang is on a crowded train, they stab a man and he dies immediately without anyone noticing; they hold his body up, take his money from his blazer pockets and flee as soon as the doors of the train open. Just another day at work. The plot begins when Tsotsi sees an African professional woman getting out of her Mercedes to ring a buzzer on her gate so that her husband can let her in (it was late and raining). Tsotsi shoots her and steals her car, only to realize after a little while that he has a passenger on the back seat; the woman’s baby boy.

Tsotsi is a killer, but he cannot kill a baby. He then takes the baby home with him, to a room that seems to be built on top of someone else’s shack. He realizes his responsibility to take care of the child but struggles to. He uses newspapers as diapers, feeds him condensed milke, does not bathe him and carries the baby around in a shopping bad. In desperation of getting the baby fed and taken care of, he (at gunpoint) forces a nursing mother who stays in a nearby shack to feed and wash the baby. As she does and she was told, something shifts inside of him and all of his hurt and pain are awakened.

Tsotsi doesn't become a nice man. He simply stops being active as an evil one, and finds his time occupied with the child. Babies are single-minded and give no stress. They want to be fed, changed, held, and they want to be made much of, and they think it is their birth right. The mother senses something profound in Tsotsi and wants to nudge him in a direction that will protect this helpless baby, her family and perhaps even Tsotsi himself.

There isn’t much camera movement, where there is a move, it was dictated by the movement of the characters and the story. The camera was kept still in most of the scenes, studying the characters and trying to get to know them intimately. Tsotsi was shot in such a way that it was more of a one-on-one relationship movie, which is something one would not expect with such a storyline. They used a Super 35mm widescreen to make the scenes intensely emotional and engaging, to get a sense of the characters in the space and the broadness of the space.

I think the opening scene’s sound and music worked perfectly together. The scene shows Tsotsi and his friends at Tsotsi’s house when one of the friends ask Tsotsi what they’d be doing that night. An upbeat and almost powerful song begins playing when the camera focuses on a close-up of Tsotsi’s face. The scene then cuts to them leaving the house and walking along the street towards the city.

The scene’s action and song combination worked well together because the song seemed to give us an insight into how others viewed Tsotsi. As the song plays, Tsotsi’s movements are very controlled and purposeful, like he knows how to handle himself and what he needs to do in order to survive in that environment. He also seems to be very focused during this scene and the music seems to emphasize that since the music was also very controlled and had a very direct beat to it. Tsotsi’s friends also walk slightly behind Tsotsi which shows that they view him as the leader of their group.

As the scene progresses, the sound of train tracks and a train whistle are heard in the background. These sounds being used in addition to the song seem to direct where the scene is going. It’s almost like a preview of what’s to come is being shown because their robbery at the train station is what started Tsotsi off on his journey to find value in his life.

What a great movie – slow moving but certainly not boring. Tsotsi is the second film (after "Yesterday") that has been nominated for the foreign film Oscars. There are a lot of stories in our beloved country that have cried for a century to be told and it is beautiful to see films being produced and our stories being told.