Tsotsi by Gavin Hood
In Tsotsi a
thug name David calls himself Tsotsi after fleeing from his home and abusive
father as a child. He hangs with a gang and commits robberies and other crimes
together. One nigh Tsotsi goes off on his own and commits an auto robbery
shooting a woman in the chest. He drives off in her car and discovers that
there is a baby strapped in the backseat of the car. He decides to take the
baby back to his shack. He wants to keep the baby to raise it on his own.
Tsotsi finds a local mother with a baby and forces her to feed the child and
over time take care of it treating it as if it were her own baby. Tsotsi often
goes out with the gang and leaves the baby with her after an a very bad
incident where he discovered the baby covered in bugs under his bed.
The baby’s
mother survives her shooting and details Tsotsi’s description to the police
where they make a drawing of him for a wanted sign. The picture and wanted sign
are distributed throughout the city and they make their way into the slum where
Tsotsi lives as well. Tsotsi decides to take his gang to the house where the
auto robbery and baby kidnapping occurred. His gang ties up the husband who
just came home from the hospital. They raid the house stealing valuables but
Tsotsi spends his time packing a bag full of baby items to bring back with him.
When one
member of the gang decides to kill the husband because he sets off a house
alarm Tsotsi decides to kill him because he did not want to harm the husband.
Tsotsi and his other gang friend flee before ADT security shows up because of
the house alarm. Later the mother taking care of the baby convinces Tsotsi to
return the baby after discovering the flier with his description on it. When he
goes to return the baby the police show up and cause a standoff. Tsotsi does
not want to return the baby he keeps it in his arms, the father comes outside
to convince Tsotsi to hand him his baby and after that the police arrest him.
A major
theme in Tsotsi is redemption. The main character David or Tsotsi as we come to
know him as a hardened criminal slowly changes throughout the film. He proceeds
to make moral decisions and goes out of his way to help others even though most
of the problems he helps people with stem from his own actions. One example of
this is where he brings his friend to his house to nurse him back to health
even though he beat him within an inch of his life at the beginning of the
film. The baby, whom he struggles to try and abandon with the car at the beginning,
ends up bringing out the good in him and he cannot bring himself to part with
the baby at the end. I also believe that his trying to raise the baby he was in
some way trying to redeem or resolve the trauma from his childhood.
No comments:
Post a Comment