Beyond the Multiplex

"Tsotsi": Crime, punishment and deliverance in the ghettos of the new South Africa
When South African director Gavin Hood was casting "Tsotsi," the story of a teenage gang leader in the black townships of Johannesburg, his producers asked him to come to Hollywood and consider "name" actors, presumably well-known African-American stars. (Try as I might, I couldn't get Hood or anyone else to tell me whom he auditioned.) Hood spent three weeks in Los Angeles before going home and casting his film entirely with young South African theater actors who could perform in Tsotsi-Taal, the hybrid street language of Soweto that blends Afrikaans, Zulu, Xhosa and bits of English.

Such are the fateful choices that separate movies of integrity from half-baked compromises aimed at "global" audiences. Maybe "Tsotsi" could have been a good movie in English, with American rappers and TV actors playing the roles; we'll never know. What we've got instead is an explosive wide-screen vision of the street life of Soweto, bursting with music, danger and vitality, and the extraordinary story of a ruthless young criminal known only as Tsotsi -- the word might translate into American English as "gangsta" -- whose life is abruptly transformed by the aftermath of one of his violent deeds. As cynical as I can sometimes be about the seemingly random process by which foreign films are nominated for Academy Awards, this one is richly deserved.

As played by Presley Chweneyagae, a young actor with no formal training and little experience whom Hood found in his Johannesburg auditions, Tsotsi isn't much more than a kid, although his deeds are those of a hardened killer. Early in the film, we see his gang murder an ordinary man on a commuter train for his wallet, and watch Tsotsi himself beat one of his underlings mercilessly for expressing doubt and remorse. Life in Soweto is clearly difficult, and Tsotsi, a young man without family, has found a way to support himself. But we have good reason to fear him and even hate him.

"Tsotsi" was adapted by Hood from the novel by Athol Fugard, which was set during a particularly repressive period of apartheid, in the early 1960s. While Hood has changed various things about the setting and even the resolution, the basic arc of the story, and its problematic protagonist, remains the same. "This character is pretty extreme," Hood tells me during a recent telephone conversation. "Initially this is someone you truly do not like."

Fugard's book, Hood says, challenges the reader to believe that redemption and forgiveness are possible, even for someone as damaged and hardened as Tsotsi. "So this was a difficult challenge. You have to take the audience on a journey in 90 minutes where perhaps they don't forgive him, but they start to feel certain other things: But for a roll of the dice, that could be me."

The big question in making the film, Hood says, was: "Are we going to alienate the audience? You don't want him to just be a pickpocket or a petty thief, it's not enough of a journey." Having Tsotsi commit violent, even unforgivable crimes was the only way to prepare the movie's central moral conundrum. "You want to talk about forgiveness?" Hood asks. "What does it take to forgive, what is our capacity to forgive? Well, try this. "

Tsotsi's turning point arrives when he carjacks a woman in her suburban driveway, shooting her point-blank and making off with her BMW. He doesn't really know how to drive, and as he careens down the road he hears a strange sound from the back seat: There's a 3-month-old baby lovingly strapped in back there. Presumably your average, rational criminal would dump the kid on a social-service worker or clergy member, or simply ditch the car with tot inside and phone in its location to the cops. But Tsotsi isn't either of those things. It's easy to make this premise seem cornball, or just implausible, but in Tsotsi's hypercharged world of thuggery and fatalism, everything is symbolic and nothing happens by accident.

Wisely, Hood never lets us very far inside this angry boy's head. When Tsotsi forces a lovely young mother named Miriam (Terry Pheto) to breast-feed the abducted child at gunpoint, she naturally wants to know where its mother is. "He's mine," Tsotsi tells her, offering no further explanation. Obviously he has no idea how to feed, clean or care for an infant; when he leaves the baby sucking on a can of condensed milk, it's viciously swarmed by biting ants. (They are computer-generated.) Many viewers (especially parents) will watch "Tsotsi" with a clammy sensation of mounting dread: How long can this tiny, fragile creature survive the boy's clumsiness, ignorance and neglect?

Hood expertly builds the drama as the police comb the volatile township for the missing child, the paralyzed mother fights for her life and Tsotsi distances himself from his gang followers, who begin to drift away to a rival leader (played by South African musical superstar Zola). With Miriam's help, Tsotsi keeps the child alive and concealed, but he begins to understand two important things: One way or another, the world won't let him keep this baby. And however he may now feel about his life and his criminal past, the story isn't likely to end well.

Tsotsi's story, says Hood, is a fable. "This event has cracked him open and forced a process of self-examination. He feels genuine remorse for what he has done, and the question -- which is unanswered, I think -- is whether he can still save himself. He has truly, and suddenly, reached a place where he's had an epiphany. What I hope is that we have stayed on the right side of this story. We want to reach a place where there's some hope. These characters are deeply flawed and they do bad things, but we didn't want to end up with shooting everybody, like in some 'cool' gangster movie."

One obvious question has been raised about "Tsotsi" in some quarters: Why is a white director with an expensive American education telling this story about post-Mandela South Africa, in which every speaking character is black (except one police officer)? "I'd be naive to think that won't be asked of me," says Hood. "On one level, the answer is: What do you think of Spike Lee directing '25th Hour,' which has no black people in it? What do you think of Ang Lee directing 'Brokeback Mountain'? I don't know what his sexuality is and it doesn't matter, but those cowboys definitely aren't Taiwanese.

"Then there's another answer, which is that sometimes as an outsider you may have less of an investment, a clearer view. I worked in the townships for three years [as an educational filmmaker], and got to know some of the people. And remember, I am a craftsman, I am a storyteller. What we do in this business is venture into worlds other than our own. If I have not told the story well, then that is a flaw, regardless of my color or race or background.

"You could set this movie in South Central L.A. or Mexico City or Moscow. I'm not making a movie about black people. I'm making a movie about a disturbed, angry kid who has been abandoned. The specificity of Johannesburg gives it a flavor and images not often seen on-screen, and Johannesburg is my city. As a white South African who has been privileged, I'm just happy I could apply my craft to a story in my hometown."

"Tsotsi" opens Feb. 24 in major cities, with a national release to follow.

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