Tsotsi (2005)

In a shantytown in South Africa having a gang means your survival as a young man. Tsotsi, meaning "thug", is the leader of his group of four who spend their nights pickpocketing their victims at gun or needlepoint. He is aggressive, reckless and unfeeling, often badgering his other members including the scholarly Boston. One night, after a fight, Tsotsi storms off into the rich end of town where he sees woman caught in the rain, unable to open the gate protecting her house. Tsotsi shoots the woman and steals her car, driving off into the darkness.

Unbeknownst to him the woman was a mother and the car he stole had the baby in the backseat. Unable to bring the child back for fear of being arrested and, to the audience, confusingly unable to abandon it, Tsotsi takes the baby back to his tin hut and tries to care for it. The baby's mother lives and a manhunt begins for this nobody in an area housing over a million.

"Tsotsi" is a simple, but very powerful story of redemption. Shot on location, it presents an unsympathetic view of a mysterious country and their social dynamics. Within the vibrant life and atmosphere of the people these streets are kept mean by boys growing up in a perpetuating cycle of violence and death by disease.

As Tsotsi inexplicably tries to care for the boy we learn through flashback about his past and possibly his current motives. As a child, Tsosti's mother died of AIDS in front of him and his alcoholic father drove him away to be raised by and with other orphaned children living in concrete drainage pipes. Tsotsi was a dog with his spine broken from an early age, limping to find comfort and family. As the story progresses we see him turn from his surrogate gang family to try and form an actual one.

Desperate to find proper food for the baby, whom he has named David, Tsotsi forces a young mother to breastfeed him. This evolves into something more, but the nature of relationship it becomes remains enigmatic. He himself attempts to become a father figure for David, and by the end it seems as though he may even succeed. And then there is Boston. Although Boston, Aap and Butcher were all called brother by Tsotsi, the look in his eye when he said it to the teacher was special.

The film is not happy, it is not easy. How could it be? This is difficult material filled with difficult and completely foreign characters. We, in our Western world, cannot imagine the hardships of being rationed a bucket of water for the day, fearing being stabbed quietly on a train full of people, being raised by eight year olds when you yourself are no older. It seems a mystery to us that this place where people live in abject poverty spawns unending violence, rape and theft, but the pieces are laid there plainly for us to see.

Presley Chweneyagae carries the film with a masterful performance as the thug. Even with the film's melodramatic ending his eyes seer into your skull with the knowledge that although he has done good and has become good there is no way for him to undo what he did, and he will be punished for his actions. Rightly so, but his rebirth is powerful. Masterfully shot and with superb pacing this is a quality film that touches cliches, but never enforces them.

3/4