Tsotsi

Rating R Formats DVD Genre drama Starring Presley Chweneyagae, Terry Pheto, Kenneth Nkosi, Mothusi Magano, Zenzo Ngqobe Directed by Gavin Hood Publisher Miramax External Links Official Miramax Website

This South African drama nabbed the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film back in March. Like most winners of the prize, Gavin Hood's humanist character study is formally conventional and shamelessly manipulative. It's also anchored by a surprisingly affecting breakout performance by 21 year-old Presley Chweneyagae.

Based on a novel by Athol Fugard, Tsotsi traces the emotional transformation of a cold-blooded street thug to...well, to a vulnerable street thug. It's a bit like A Clockwork Orange repurposed as liberal human interest drama. After a botched carjacking in the rich suburbs of Johannesburg, Tsotsi finds himself the accidental guardian of an adorable three-month old baby. Rather than return or abandon the child, Tsotsi smuggles him back to Soweto where he keeps a makeshift home, shoots dice with his gang, and occasionally robs commuters. Ashamed of his inability to ditch the baby, Tsotsi hides his secret from the gang and ferries the infant across the mean streets of the shantytown in a paper shopping bag, periodically enlisting the services of a young widowed mother, whom he forces to nurse the child at gunpoint.

Tsotsi's motive for keeping the baby is detailed in some effective, though unsubtle flashbacks. Here we discover that the young Tsotsi fled a violent home and was forced to resort to crime for his own survival. He's just young enough, Hood suggests, to find redemption through his connection to this child. While the film does little to make us accept this premise (Tsotsi kills a man in cold blood early in the film), Chweneyagae, a preternaturally-gifted young actor almost makes us believe it. When we first meet Tsotosi, his face is a mask of cold, murderous indifference. He's particularly chilling in a slow-burn scene where one of his fellow gang members taunts him into violence. His thuggish exterior begins to dissolve in a confrontation with a disabled beggar, played with quiet dignity by Jerry Mofokeng. Ultimately, the demands of protecting the baby render Tsotsi helpless to his barely-suppressed need for human connection. Most of this is communicated through Chweneyagae's face and posture, and not through the somewhat clunky dialogue. We see his hardened features melt into those of a terrified and confused child. On a purely visual level, Tsotsi's transformation is uncanny and heart-wrenching. Only a Vulcan could be unmoved.

Apart from its central performance, Tsotsi has other virtues. It has a vividly-rendered sense of placeïthis may be the closest you'll get to Soweto, the culturally-vibrant township on the outskirts of Johannesburg. The film is propelled by an exciting score, most of which is a South African version of hip-hop known as "kwaito."

And even though Tsotsi is a bit too dramatically conventional for my tastes, it's a welcome departure from recent treatments of the subject. Unlike the cold, flashy thrills of Brazilian hit City of God, Hood's film impresses as a restrained, compassionate portrait of ghetto life. Though both visions are white, liberal dissections of a black, criminal underclass, Tsotsi lacks the exploitative aftertaste of its predecessor. Hood is concerned with a basic liberal ideaïthat even the worst criminal is capable of redemption. This makes Tsotsi a rather unfashionable, but welcome proposition to this viewer.

The DVD includes three deleted scenes, a making-of featurette, director's commentary, a music video and Hood's well-made, but even more manipulative short film, 1998's "The Storekeeper." This 21 minute film demonstrate Hood's facility for visual storytelling (none of the characters speak) and his tendency to pull at the heartstrings (more cute children in peril.) As a morality play, it lacks the immediacy of Tstotsi, but it shows Hood to be a promising stylist. The DVD also includes two alternate endings, each showing how a few extra seconds of footage would have drastically altered the tone and meaning of Tsotsi's moral balancing act.