Monday, March 27, 2006

Tsotsi

Maybe this blog is degrading into a strange hodgepodge of unrelated reflections... but...

The wife and I saw the movie Tsotsi during our weekly date over the weekend. It's an import from South Africa, based on the 1989 novel of the same name by Athol Fugard. We had seen a play by Fugard a few months ago, Exits and Entrances, which was good, so we thought this worth a try.

I think it's a fine movie. Sort of a Pulp Fiction without the glorification of violence. I hated PF. I found the main characters despicable, and while they were painted as sympathetic, I had no desire to sympathize with them. I felt dirty leaving the theater. With Tsotsi, you have an equally despicable main character, yet he's humanly complex. You sympathize with him, not because he's funny or quirky as in PF, but because he's human, because you come to believe redemption is really possible for him, or you lament that it may not come.

I recommend it, if you can find it anywhere!

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