Lee Jones
posted 23 March 2006

Tsotsi won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, and it's not difficult to see why: as a classic tale of loss, love and redemption, transposed into the townships of South Africa, it was bound to resonate in Hollywood. It is also a powerful and moving film, but by sanitising the characters, the screenplay shies away from the harder task of making an audience sympathetic to the truly irredeemable.

The film's story revolves around a small-time gangster, Tsotsi. The name means 'thug' (we later learn his real name is David), and a thug he is: his small gang rob a man, knifing him to death, on a crowded train, just moments into the film, and in a blind rage he later beats the face of one of his gang members into a bloody pulp for daring to suggest he lacks decency, and enquiring about his true identity. Then a car-jacking has unintended consequences: having shot the female driver, he drives off - with her baby in the back seat. The film is about how he deals with having taken the baby from its parents, but, more accurately, it is about Tsotsi achieving 'decency'. Ultimately, Tsotsi is a morality tale that seeks to inform us that 'decency' can be found anywhere, even in the townships of Johannesburg.

The dramatic transformation of Tsotsi from thug to nanny is basically unconvincing. Why would a man content to knife a man for his wallet or shoot a woman in her stomach just to steal her car be concerned for a baby? By way of explanation, we're shown a flashback to his childhood: his mother, presumably dying of AIDS, is tyrannised by his drunken father, and Tsotsi runs away. It's the usual psychological sob story: Tsotsi is only a thug because of an abusive childhood. With the police on his tail, Tsotsi palms the baby off on a beautiful local widow (self-employed, the epitome of decency), and their relationship also begins to soften him. Deep down, he is a compassionate, kind person, and all it takes to uncover the 'decent' human beneath the gritty exterior is a cute baby and a wife.

That aside, Presley Chweneyagae (playing Tsotsi) is a remarkable young actor, capable of conveying immense inner turmoil with a subtle change of facial expression, who almost makes the transformation from ruthless gangster to surrogate father seem convincing. The story that unfolds is undoubtedly gripping, and there are a few scenes during the transformation that are incredibly powerful, particularly a confrontation with a disabled tramp. The gang's final raid ends in disaster (his friends steal jewellery; Tsotsi steals cuddly toys for the baby!) and the gang disintegrates; the widow finds out where the baby came from and insists he return it; all the time, the police are getting nearer. The final, dramatic denouement leaves you on the edge of your seat and feeling emotionally exhausted.

Tsotsi is a compelling film, beautifully shot, superbly acted. Although its plot is of the fall/redemption type familiar to mainstream cinema, its story adds much that is original and provocative. But ultimately by buying into that genre, it dodges the hard task of encouraging us to sympathise with a basically repugnant character: Tsotsi goes through more of a reincarnation than a transformation, totally abandoning all of his repellent behaviour the moment he acquires the baby, and is then contrasted starkly with his 'irredeemable', violent friend, Butcher. The idea that a life of violence and deprivation can be redeemed by a few days of pseudo-family life doesn't wash. Tsotsi further simplifies the story - which initially seems laden with the promise of complexity - by ensuring the story has nothing to do with race: the wealthy family from whom the baby is stolen are also black, and the only white character is a grizzled detective. It is really the beauty of the cinematography, the power of the acting, and the alternately thumping and haunting soundtrack that carry the film and serve to gloss over its weaknesses: even if Tsotsi tells us little about the reality of life in the townships, it is a moving and original variant on the usual Hollywood morality tale.