Tsotsi
2005
Director: Gavin Hood
Starring: Presley Chweneyagae, Terry Pheto
It’s always interesting for me to see a film from a country I know little about, or even one which produces few international films in general. The South African film industry is hardly on par with Hollywood, but they have a solid entry into international cinema with Tsotsi. Although I didn’t feel that it brought anything tremendously novel to the screen, it tells its little story of moral redemption well.
Tsotsi (Chweneyagae), a young hoodlum in Johannesburg, steals a car, not knowing that there is a small baby in the backseat. When he discovers the child, he cannot bring himself to abandon it, and instead, starts to care for it, forcibly enlisting the help of a single mother (Pheto). In doing so, he begins to question his current life of crime and how he wound up there, all while wrestling with whether or not to return the child to its affluent parents.
The narrative focus of this film is squarely on Tsotsi attempting to turn his life around. Chweneyagae turns in a fine performance in this aspect, but I felt his “pre-epiphany” Tsotsi much more a caricature. He is hardened and violent, but somehow, I felt a massive disconnect between this Tsotsi and the one he turned into. The name “Tsotsi” even means “Thug.” I’m not sure what I was expecting, but I know that the Tsotsi we meet at the beginning of the film felt oddly unreal. To give credit where credit is due, I will end by reiterating what a nice job Chweneyagae does with the metamorphosis of the character, especially considering that this is likely one of his first films, but it seems like he didn’t quite know where to start.
