Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1907 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-07-17
• Rating: Suitable for 15 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.77:1
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 94 minutes

Synopsis
Based on South African playwright Athol Fugard's only novel, TSOTSI is a thrilling, provocative look at life in the ghettos outside present-day Johannesburg. Presley Chweneyagae stars as the title character, a teenager with a killer stare who lives alone in a ramshackle room in a poor shantytown, where he pulls off petty crimes with the help of three compatriots Boston (Mothusi Magano), Butcher (Zenzo Ngqobe), and Aap (Kenneth Nkosi). But after they stab a man to death on the subway and Tsotsi (which means thug or gangster) beats up Boston for trying to find out about his past, Tsotsi runs off to a wealthy section of the city, shoots a woman, and steals her car. Only later does he discover that there is a baby in the back seat and decides to keep it for himself. As Tsotsi finally does look back at his own childhood, he tries to take care of the infant, carrying it around in a paper bag and forcing a young mother, Miriam (Terry Pheto), to breastfeed it at gunpoint. At this point, writer-director Gavin Hood could have opted for trite sentimentality, but instead he delves deeper into Tsotsi's psyche, as the young man might have already gone too far to turn back now. TSOTSI is a pulsating, electrifying film propelled by Chweneyagae's powerful, mesmerising performance. The pounding soundtrack features popular local Kwaito music by Zola, who also plays crimelord Fela in the film. Winner of the 2006 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, 'TSOTSI will rank as one of the best films ever to come out of South Africa', as Fugard himself said.

Customer Reviews

Re-birth of a Rainbow Nation? (8/10)
Based on a novel by South African playwright Athol Fugard, Tsotsi a slickly-produced, powerful drama set in a giant township outside Johannesburg. Presley Chweneyagae stars as the eponymous Tsotsi, a baby-faced assassin forced into surrogate fatherhood by the baby he unwittingly kidnaps during a bungled car jacking. Protecting the baby thus forces Tsotsi to examine his behaviour in the light of his own lost childhood, darkened by the death of his mother to AIDS and an abusive father.

`Tsotsi' is an apocalyptic but highly stylised vision of township blight, all brewing storm clouds and hyper-real colours. Large, prominent AIDS/HIV posters feature in several shots, adding to a mood of impending catastrophe as ominously as the punctuating lightening bolts and thunderclaps. The style, very much informed by hip hop video culture - or at least a hybrid South African version of it - brings to mind Mathieu Kassovitz's `La Haine', the camera in the initial sequences bouncing to booty-shaking Kwaito basslines. While the sets seem studio-engineered rather than shot on location, the visual slickness is offset by unselfconsciously naturalistic performances.

By focusing on black South Africa, both rich and poor - there is scarcely a white face in the film - 'Tsotsi' deals less with the legacy of Apartheid and more with issues of poverty, personal responsibility, penetance, and the impact of broken families on their children. This latter aspect, especially that caused by the global AIDS epidemic, makes Tstosi universal without resorting to explicit political finger-pointing. While the root causes of AIDS are not explored, one of its consequences is - the resulting breakdown of the family unit and its impact on social dysfunction.

Above all, `Tsotsi' is a simple and moving story about boys forced to be men by their circumstances, which is why Presley Chweneyagae is so perfect in the lead role: his soft, benign features belying a life of pain. Despite the apparently downbeat conclusion, there is a subtler note of optimism, that the young men of the townships can nurture the next generation in the most difficult circumstances, that they can learn from their experiences and do the right thing.

SPECTACULAR!
I will keep this review brief as I believe that it doesn't take long to portray with words just how utterly brilliant this film really is. If you are the kind of person who likes to see a gripping story, lots of suspense and a sense of realism in your films, you need look no further. I believe a truly great film needs a real meaning and an important message. Tsotsi is about real life problems and illustrates typical life standards in the poor areas of Johannesburg. The film is easy to follow despite the need of sub titles and I personally believe that it is one film which had I not watched it (without sounding corny), my life wouldn't be the same today.

Finding hope in desperate life of a young South African
Tsotsi is ultimately an uplifting film set in the brutal and hopeless world of a young man (Tsotsi) living in a shanty town outside Johannesburg.
Tsotsi is a scary character, callous and violent. He survives on the profit of crime and in the pursuit of one nights work an unlikely person gets entangled in his life. In his own distorted way Tsotsi has found someone to love and someone who is fully dependent on him for survival. A survival which seems precarious and adds to the tension of the film.
The film is I believe a story of the search for love and how in starting to care for another, one's life can be transformed. Tsotsi's life seems hopeless but hope and redemption seem a possibility for him as his conscience gradually awakens and the consequences of his criminal life come to a dramatic climax.