This year’s foreign-language Oscar-winner is a gritty, realistic urban story of a thug who finds himself with someone else’s baby.
This is only the second of the
foreign-language Oscar nominees to open in Philadelphia. (Two others will
shortly follow.) With its win last Sunday, the release is rather timely. Tsotsi
(translated as “thug” in the movie) is based on the only novel by
celebrated South African playwright Athol Fugard. Writer-director Gavin Hood
has deftly reset the novel, written during apartheid’s rise, in modern Soweto
and Johannesburg. Presley
Chweneyagae has the title role of a gangster who finds himself taking care of
someone else’s baby. The movie doesn’t shy away from showing Tsotsi’s brutal
side, or the environment that hardened him. As Hood has pointed out, the
essence of the story, the gangsta with a heart of gold, could have been set in
Philadelphia, or the Rio of City of God, or almost any large city. Even
so, two particularly South African things stand out. One is the music, mostly
an African rap hybrid with songs by Zola, who has a supporting role as a rival
gang leader in the film. The other is the language. Even though you’ll need the
subtitles, the dialect is a fascinating mélange of tribal languages and
English. If there’s a flaw, it’s that the change we see in Tsotsi happens too
fast. Even so, the portrayals by Chweneyagae
and the other actors (especially those who play the baby’s parents) are first
rate, and Hood renders Fugard’s story with subtlety and precision.
posted 9/10/13
