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We’ve heard this story before, but we haven’t heard it told like this. Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae) is a ruthless punk living in squalor in the South African town of Johannesburg.  He runs with a gang of similar punks, who have no compunction about killing. Tstosi is the most unrepentant of the gang, but they all have their moments. In a crowded subway, Butcher (Zenzo Ngqobe) stabs a man with a long, sharp pick and puts him down so gently, no one realizes he’s been stabbed. Tstosi, though, seems the most deadly, the most feral. Wearing a hood and holding his gun sideways, he looks animalistic and resistant to rehabilitation. As these early scenes unfolded, I was reminded of the countless Stateside films starring rappers and other African-American actors, who begin the film as merciless killers, only to end the film as dead merciless killers, or incarcerated merciless killers. But Tsotsi, based on playwright Athol Fugard’s work, isn’t interested in operatic levels of storytelling or the uncomfortable feeling that the actors in these films seem to be having fun holding prop guns and pretending to pop various caps into various asses.
 
Tsotsi is also prone to explosive bursts of violence, his default way of dealing with any threat. But ironically, it’s a savage burst of brutality that leads to what may be his redemption. After being needled by one his accomplices for a lack of decency, Tsosti beats the man to a bloody pulp. Fleeing, he winds up in a fashionable neighborhood, where he approaches a woman who is standing in the rain, ringing the doorbell of her gated home. Tsotsi shoots the woman in the stomach, then drives away in her BMW. What Tsotsi soon realizes is that there’s a baby in the backseat. It’s not hard to imagine Tsotsi shooting the baby, or tossing it out the car window. But the friend who berated his lack of humanity opened a crack in his armor and Tsotsi, which means thug in the native language, takes the baby home.
 
Tsotsi is hardly Father of the Year material, but he manages to keep the baby fed. In the baby, Tsotsi is in possession of someone who cannot be persuaded by violence or forced to do something they don’t want to do. In other words, Tsosti has found someone stronger than him, yet infinitely weaker. As mentioned before, in picturing Tsotsi holding the baby, we imagine the one-sheet for Get Rich or Die Tryin’, 50 Cent posing with his back to the camera, holding a baby.  But director Gavin Hood presents his story with no flash and no cynicism. The movie does not condemn Tsotsi or make excuses for him. He is simply a tragic product of a horrible environment. He may be guilty of all he has done, but at the end, even Tsotsi feels there may be more to life than the one he’s been living. I enjoyed the ending of the film, in which the police finally track down Tsotsi and the baby’s parents cry for the return of their child. It’s a simple, slightly ambiguous denouement that Chweneyagae plays with a combination of fear and sensitivity. By the end, Tsotsi’s future is still in doubt and it may, in fact, be too late for him. But in his frightened gaze we sense his realization that the life he’s been living has been no life at all.  

Video: How Does the Disc Look? 
 
Tsotsi is graced with a very vibrant and colorful 2.35:1 transfer. What’s striking about the transfer is that it’s so clean, it’s almost glossy. Shot in Super 35, colors are radiant and sharp, retaining full saturation. Reds and browns are almost three- dimensional looking. Blacks are rock solid, showing no pixelation or macroblocking. I saw no grain and the print looks to be in amazing shape. Detail is also quite good and contrast is above average. The establishing shots of the slum where Tsotsi lives are gorgeous. The whole thing is gorgeous, really. My only complaint is that the picture is so vivid it’s hyper-real. You appreciate it on a technological level, but it takes a second to adjust to on an emotional level.

Audio: How Does the Disc Sound? 

The audio is in Dolby Digital 5.1. The only language is the film’s original language of Taal. English is available via subtitles. This is a striking language to hear; much of it is completely foreign, but every sentence or two, they’ll be a word that sounds exactly like it does in English. It jolts you when you hear them. Anyway, the audio is very evocative and supports the visuals extremely well. Granted, the surrounds didn’t do a lot (some at the beginning, but they tapered off after that), but the front side channels chime in with effects and bits of dialogue. But what impressed was the clarity of the audio and the sharp, clean combination of dialogue, music, and effects. Dialogue is extremely clean. The music is also quite crisp, although deeper bass would have been appreciated. The 5.1 track is a very lively and lifelike, enhancing the experience of watching the film.
 
Along with English, subtitles are available in Spanish.

Supplements: What Goodies are There? 

For a relatively small film, Miramax did a nice job compiling the extras.

First in the Bonus Features menu is Alternate Endings, which can be viewed with or without audio commentary by Hood. The director says both of these endings felt contrived and that the eventual ending was created in the edit bay. Seeing these possible endings, Hood is right; these two alternate endings were melodramatic. The one he created in editing feels right.

Next are three deleted scenes, which add up to about ten minutes. The first is a five-minute scene where one of the minor characters makes a confession. The next is the only moment of warmth for Tsotsi in the whole film. All these scenes put an exclamation point on the emotions, leaving the viewer with less to consider on their own. I admire Hood for not going the easy route.

The 13-minute The Making of Tsotsi is pretty standard, but the movie is interesting enough that the featurette is interesting. The movie is based on the only novel that playwright Athol Fugard ever wrote. It only took two years from script to shooting, which is a testament to the strength of the story and quite a different situation from the usual “we toiled for 18 years trying to make this teenage comedy.” There is some behind the scenes footage and a quick interview with the actor who plays the title character. Again, it’s typical, but it’s worth a look.

Next is a great audio commentary by director Gavin Hood, who shows quite a complete knowledge of his characters and how the loss of Tsotsi’s mother made him who he is. Hood says the movie is about how the main character “rediscovers his own humanity.” Hood also gets into the violence in the film, but he refuses to glamorize it and, in fact, toned it down so the emphasis was on the effects of violence, not the violence itself. Hood, who is UCLA educated, comes across as an intelligent man with a firm grasp of the visuals and the emotions of the piece.

The most interesting extra is a short film by director Gavin Hood called The Storekeeper. It’s available with or without audio commentary by Hood. It was Hood’s first 35 mm film and he did it eight years ago. Hood considers Storekeeper and Tsotsi very similar; for instance, Storekeeper has no dialogue at all, while Tsotsi has relatively little dialogue. It’s based on the true story of a storeowner who was repeatedly robbed until taking matters into his own hands. A worthy inclusion. The video looks generally good. Blacks are dark and colors are rich, but there is some grain and slight pixelation.

Finally there is a music video for the song “Mdlwembe” by an artist named Zola. It’s a rap thing and it includes footage from the movie.