Few figures are more feared and reviled within a developing industrial society than the modern, urban criminal. Eternally marginalized, hopelessly destitute and morally bankrupt, our standard notion of these nameless thugs tags them as forever irredeemable for their fundamental discordance within larger societal norms. But redemption – specifically in the most tragic of circumstances – is precisely what director Gavin Hood’s modern adaptation of the 1961 South African novel, “Tsotsi,” hopes to understand. With a strong set of performances, unapologetic sentimentality and upbeat urban vibrancy, it would certainly be hard to argue that it fails.
With a nickname that literally means “thug” in Zulu, boorish teenager and small-time criminal Tsotsi (newcomer Presley Chweneyagae) is alternately brooding and psychotic. While rolling dice or downing beers with his three cohorts in a dusty slum outside Johannesburg, he’s pensive and calculating.
Caught in an uncontrollable moment of passion, the baby-faced Tsotsi turns sickeningly violent. When an intra-group conflict leaves Tsotsi flying solo for an evening, his impulsive criminality leads him to steal an expensive car and shoot its owner – only to find, minutes later, a wailing infant in the back seat.
Driven by a powerfully fervent performance from Chweneyagae, Tsotsi elicits both our horror and sympathy in reacting to the circumstances before him.
At the moment of his discovery, his look of shame, fear and confusion suggests a deep desire to protect the child, but his woefully misguided attempt at caring for it illuminates his fundamental irresponsibility and simplicity. Perhaps his only sensible move regarding the child is to force a neighbor – and new mother herself (newcomer Terry Pheto) – to take it under her care.
Although Hood doesn’t directly offer an explanation for Tsotsi’s sudden paternalistic impulses and the consequences of this new role on his morals, he does place particular emphasis on our antihero’s anguished upbringing to explain his current state of mind. Fleeing from a violent, temperamental father and an AIDS-afflicted mother, we learn that Tsotsi spent the majority of his youth living in a cement tube, alone and unwanted. With the gradual illustration of this history, we are essentially forced into feeling a sense of empathy – acquiring an understanding of the protagonist’s actions as an attempt to reclaim a lost childhood.
One of the greatest strengths of “Tsotsi” is its depiction of the central characters’ colorful neighborhood, rendered in a manner that is simultaneously artful and gritty. Pulsating to thunderous South African hip hop, the chaotic bustle between the slum’s dingy tin-roofed shacks doesn’t so much set the scene as it palpably tells the story itself.
Despite a predictably uplifting conclusion, the film is an outright triumph because the force behind its message is so powerful. That’s not to say that “Tsotsi” is not a deeply saddening piece of work, but for those who prefer their heartbreak stitched together with a faith in personal redemption, “Tsotsi” is not simply worth seeing, but hailing.
Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
Tsotsi
At the State Theater
Miramax