Movie review: Tsotsi
The 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is only one of many awards Tsotsi has won. Johannesburg slang for "thug," the "tsotsi" of the story shoots a woman and steals her car, only to find an infant in the back seat. Over the course of six days, Tsotsi recalls his own childhood as he struggles to care for the baby. Despite the violent world he lives in, Tsotsi finds the baby stirring his own buried feelings of loss and abandonment and his humanity.
Shortly after Tsotsi has taken the baby home, he terrorizes a paralyzed beggar, accusing him first of faking his disability, then demanding the man's money. When he finally asks the man why he goes on living when it means "living like a crippled dog," the man replies that he enjoys the warmth of sunshine on his face. This begins Tsotsi's troubled quest for a life beyond dispassionate violence.
Since the infant cannot speak in defense of it's own life, the disabled man symbolically plays the role of helplessness for him. Tsotsi unconsciously seeks out the cripple, acting with belligerence and curiosity. To his question, he receives an answer about the intangible qualities that make life valuable for even the low and abandoned of society.
The story is much bigger and more beautiful than this tension-filled scene with the disabled man, but it contains the seed of the film's humanity. Disability is used to symbolize helplessness in order to voice the value of the stolen baby's life to the young thug. Additionally, the devastation of AIDS is a subtle presence in the film, showing how racism, poverty, and disability interact together in today's Africa.
4 comments:
This film was destined for success. It was receiving a lot of positive attention way before it won the award.
aj
I hadn't thought of the connection between the baby and the disabled man. Very interesting. Loved the film.
I really do n o see this connection between the child and the cripple man at the station. the baby was a catalyst for his meeting and reaching his inner child. whereas the old man is tthe "oracle" who teaches him the lessons not taught by his parents
Phenyo: It's true that the disabled man at the station is a sort of oracle for Tsotsi. Oracles, seers, and spiritual shamans have often been disabled -- blind quite frequently. Why did Tsotsi listen to this oracle when he didn't seem inclined to listen to anyone else? Why did the storytellers make him a disabled man? Why paralyzed and not blind? Why did Tsotsi first harass and terrorize this oracle before eventually learning a few things from him? There are lots of ways to answer those questions, but the disability of the man isn't incidental.
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