Tsotsi Movie Download

[Octaviano Collars]

Howstrange, a movie where a bad man becomes better, instead of the other way around. "Tsotsi," a film of deep emotional power, considers a young killer whose cold eyes show no emotion, who kills unthinkingly, and who is transformed by the helplessness of a baby. He didn't mean to kidnap the baby, but now that he has it, it looks at him with trust and need, and he is powerless before eyes more demanding than his own.

The movie, which just won the Oscar for best foreign film, is set in Soweto, the township outside Johannesburg where neat little houses built by the new government are overwhelmed by square miles of shacks. There is poverty and despair here, but also hope and opportunity; from Soweto have come generations of politicians, entrepreneurs, artists, musicians, as if it were the Lower East Side of South Africa. Tsotsi (Presley Chweneyagae) is not destined to be one of those. We don't even learn his real name until later in the film; "tsotsi" means "thug," and that's what he is.

He leads a loose-knit gang that smashes and grabs, loots and shoots, sets out each morning to steal something. On a crowded train, they stab a man,- and he dies without anyone noticing; they hold his body up with their own, take his wallet, flee when the doors open. Another day's work. But when his friend Boston (Mothusi Magano) asks Tsotsi how he really feels, whether decency comes into it, he fights with him and walks off into the night, and we sense how alone he is. Later, in a flashback, we will understand the cruelty of the home and father he fled from.

He goes from here to there. He has a strange meeting with a man in a wheelchair, and asks him why he bothers to go on living. The man tells him. Tsotsi finds himself in an upscale suburb. Such areas in Joburg are usually gated communities, each house surrounded by a security wall, every gate promising "armed response." An African professional woman gets out of her Mercedes to ring the buzzer on the gate, so her husband can let her in. Tsotsi shoots her and steals her car. Some time passes before he realizes he has a passenger: a baby boy.

Tsotsi is a killer, but he cannot kill a baby. He takes it home with him, to a room built on top of somebody else's shack. It might be wise for him to leave the baby at a church or an orphanage, but that doesn't occur to him. He has the baby, so the baby is his. We can guess that he will not abandon the boy because he has been abandoned himself, and projects upon the infant all of his own self-pity.

We realize the violence in the film has slowed. Tsotsi himself is slow to realize he has a new agenda. He uses newspapers as diapers, feeds the baby condensed milk, carries it around with him in a shopping bag. Finally, in desperation, at gunpoint, he forces a nursing mother (Terry Pheto) to feed the child. She lives in a nearby shack, a clean and cheerful one. As he watches her do what he demands, something shifts inside of him, and all of his hurt and grief are awakened.

Tsotsi doesn't become a nice man. He simply stops being active as an evil one, and finds his time occupied with the child. Babies are single-minded. They want to be fed, they want to be changed, they want to be held, they want to be made much of, and they think it is their birthright. Who is Tsotsi to argue?

What a simple and yet profound story this is. It does not sentimentalize poverty or make Tsotsi more colorful or sympathetic than he should be; if he deserves praise, it is not for becoming a good man but for allowing himself to be distracted from the job of being a bad man. The nursing mother, named Miriam, is played by Terry Pheto as a quiet counterpoint to his rage. She lives in Soweto and has seen his kind before. She senses something in him, some pool of feeling he must ignore if he is to remain Tsotsi. She makes reasonable decisions. She acts not as a heroine but as a realist who wants to nudge Tsotsi in a direction that will protect her own family and this helpless baby, and then perhaps even Tsotsi himself. These two performances, by Chweneyagae and Pheto, are surrounded by temptations to overact or cave in to sentimentality; they step safely past them and play the characters as they might actually live their lives.

How the story develops is for you to discover. I was surprised to find that it leads toward hope instead of despair; why does fiction so often assume defeat is our destiny? The film avoids obligatory violence and actually deals with the characters as people. The story is based on a novel by the South African writer Athol Fugard, directed and written by Gavin Hood.

This is the second year in a row (after "Yesterday") that a South African film has been nominated for the foreign film Oscar. There are stories in the beloved country that have cried for a century to be told.

"It's just like the other day when I was in Johannesburg" I muttered to myself. It was literally two days before this that I was watching snow flakes fall on my eyelashes and down to the ground in South Africa (I can't wait to share those stories with you!). Smitten by the country itself, I gathered Mr NQN, Louise and Viggo to see whether they would be interested in some South African food.

I've often said that Sydney has such a variety of restaurants that you could eat from pretty much any country in the world here any night of the week. And when I first heard of Lucky Tsotsi, my ears perked up as I was told that it was a South African restaurant, a cuisine that isn't very common here.

First things first, what is a tsotsi? It's slang for thug or thief. And a Shebeen? It's a makeshift unlicensed bar or shack, said to be part of African township life. I must have picked up a South African accent along the way because as soon as I walk in they ask if I'm from South Africa. I answer no, but offer up some slang that I learned during my time there including lekker (meaning nice) and now now (some time in the future). Add a few "ya yas" and you're almost there! ;)

People are friendly here. As I am waiting for Mr NQN, Louise & Viggo, two South African gentlemen start talking to me and invite me to sit at their table. Alan is from Cape Town and Derek from Zimbabwe and they tell me that they've come here a few times, lured by the authenticity. Which brings me to the decor: inside the walls are made of corrugated iron and recycled timber. A smattering of South African signs and license plates adorn the walls as are clocks that show the times throughout theregion. The signs read prices with cheeky notes like "not in Rand" and the menu is dotted with words like "lekker."

I had purposely waited until I had returned from South Africa to visit Lucky Tsotsi so that I could see how it compared to food there. The menu and drinks are all served at the bar and upstairs is the restaurant area. Viggo has a Windhoek beer, one that he enjoys immensely for the strong hops flavour and Louise has a glass of South African white wine.

The food comes out quickly-I mean really quickly! Durban is an area rich in Indian cuisine and the samoosas are filled with lamb and are deep fried until crispy on the outside with a soft, flavoursome filling inside. They come with a minted yogurt and a Mrs Balls chutney (which coincidentally, I have in my fridge).

The African platter had a range of sliced Biltong which has the flavour of coriander seeds. This is made for them at a nearby butchers. The platter also comes with dry wors or dried sausage which is chewy and some spiced dried corn which is addictive as well as some dried fruit and nuts.

I was interested to see how they would do Bunny Chow. When we were in Durban with chef Neil Perry, "Bunny chow!" became somewhat of a chant for all of us but especially Neil who was eager to try the local offering. And in Durban, whilst the curries were nice, they were served in hollowed out government white bread which soaked up all the sauce and became wet. Here, it's served in a small cob loaf that does a better jobcontaining the mild curry sauce and soft chicken pieces and I prefer the bunny chow here than the one in Durban as the bread suited it better.

Served on a bed of chips, the pork ribs came with what was described as a "lekker barbecue sauce" which was tangy and full of flavour. The ribs were soft and fell off the bone easily and this was a favourite at the table with the boys particularly liking these.

Said to be a favourite dish of Nelson Mandela, the traditional dish of samp (cracked hominy or grits) and beans is flavoured with onion, tomato and capsicum. It's mild tasting and pure comfort food and I find myself drawn to this dish over and over again.

We were a bit full by the time this arrived. Whilst it was good and the peri peri chicken tender, I still compared it to the butterflied Mozambique chicken I had in Durban which came with a gorgeous tangy sauce and I preferred that one because of the sauce.

Louise enquired about dessert as there was none on the menu. The South African classics keep coming with Malva pudding which is a baked pudding with a sweet syrup-much like a sticky date pudding without the dates or aromatics added to it. Here, it is soft and moist and served with two scoops of vanilla ice cream.

Koeksusters are also called "cook sisters" and are sweet, syrupy donut types of sweets that are thick and soak up much of the syrup. They're denser and thicker than regular donuts and a bite into them reminds us of those Indian jelabi sweets.

And no night in South Africa is complete without a springbok or two! The one on the left is a springbok and it is a double layer shooter which has a bottom layer of peppermint liqueur and a top layer of Amarula liqueur which is similar to Baileys creme liqueur with the flavour coming from the Marula fruit. There's a little too much peppermint in these whereas the ones I had in South Africa had a bit more Amarula and downing one was like a liquid Mint Pattie. This one was more pepperminty. Wealso tried the Sowetan Long Drop (not the nicest name admittedly, we suppose referring to long drop toilets) and has chocolate and banana liqueur and the African Apple which was tart and a bit medicinal.

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