Tsotsi, 2005. Dir. Gavin HOOD. Starring Presley CHWENEYAGAE, Terry PHETO, Zenzo NGQOBE, Kenneth NKOSI.
I think this is the first South African film I've seen - well, African period. Set in the Soweto slum near Johnnesburg, it's violent, moving, and alternately quickly & slowly paced (based on the only novel by playwright Athol Fugard, published in the '60s). It's got a certain meditative quality to it; the director says he was hoping to capture in a feature film the novel Tsotsi, which features a lot of Tsotsi's own thoughts on what's going on.
It's a simple story - a 19 year old thug finds redemption after committing a violent act & winding up with an infant in the process of said act (whoops). The turn doesn't take much time, which is the first thing that indicates that perhaps this isn't going to be full of GRITTY REALITY!!!, though it's got grimy stuff galore - from shanties to people taking bullets in the brain. But despite it being predictable, I was still a touch weepy by the end.
OK, so it's trite and calculated in parts, but worth viewing - it won Best Foreign Film at the '06 Oscars & it's nice seeing film from somewhere outside of my area (most people's areas, I suspect). I loved the fact they used a mix of languages - Afrikaans, the blended creole of "Tsotsitaals," a bit of English.
Chweneyagae was quite powerful as the lead & the cast was really good, especially considering it was the first film for several of them.
"You're being asked to forgive a lot," is what Hood says during the commentary over one of the deleted scenes. And you are; but it's ... oddly believable somehow, even though it nags at you that it's all a bit too pat. Really, sometimes it's nice to not be whapped upside the head with too much gritty reality. (As an aside, the soundtrack is pretty good, as was the cinematography). I mean, even the canine who makes an appearance gets the short end of the stick (I had to go hug the dog); leaving with the slightest hope of redemption isn't the worst thing in the world.
I'm beginning to think I've seen too many old silents - I'm more than willing to suspend disbelief for many marginally believable 'real life' plots.