‘Tsotsi’ memorable tale of change

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On DVD

TSOTSI, written and directed by Gavin Hood, based on the novel by Athol Fugard, 94 minutes, rated R.

Gavin Hood’s Academy Award-winning film “Tsotsi” never opened in the Bangor market, but here it is on DVD, which allows it a level playing field it didn’t enjoy during its theatrical run.

Hood based his movie on the novel by Athol Fugard, and while it isn’t as good as the movie that should have won 2005’s Best Foreign Film – Hany Abu-Assad’s “Paradise Now” – it is memorable, with a terrific performance by Presley Chweneyagae as Tsotsi that burns in its contained rage.

Set in the South African township of Soweto, where “tsotsi” is slang for “thug,” the film wastes no time in revealing that Tsotsi assumed his nickname for good reason. He is indeed a thug, hardcore to the core, with one look into his unblinking eyes suggesting that he would shoot you dead if he thought for a minute that you’d rise up against him.

He’s a young man unhinged, so seemingly lacking in humanity there is little question that for him, life is without meaning – and not just his own life. For the unfortunate few he meets early in the movie, they understand firsthand what a monster he can be. This is particularly true for the wealthy woman whose car Tsotsi hijacks. When she decides to fight back, he busts a bullet in her gut and then steals her car, only to find out later that in the back seat is her infant child.

So, what is Tsotsi to do? Leave the baby behind? Kill it? Perhaps a kidnapping is in order? He’s capable of all of it. Whatever he has in mind, into a shopping bag the baby goes, with Tsotsi fleeing to his little shanty shack, where he tucks the bag beneath his bed only to awaken the next morning to find that inside, the baby is reeking of feces and covered in flies.

It’s this image that creates the shift in Tsotsi that alters the film. Shocked by what he sees, he’s suddenly moved to act, which for Tsotsi means helping the child by the only means he knows – violence.

In town, he finds a woman (Terry Pheto) with a young child and orders her at gunpoint to breast feed the child he stole. From this, their tense relationship is born, lives are changed and as the movie unfolds, so do flashes of Tsotsi’s past – we glimpse his mother, who died of AIDS; we meet his violent father, who crippled the family dog with a vicious kick; we witness Tsotsi running away from it all to live in a cement pipe on the outskirts of Soweto, where other orphans lived.

As the stumbling blocks of his life fall into place, the human being beneath the criminal takes shape. Now a story about redemption, “Tsotsi” could have gone one of two ways – it could have become a heartwarming little tear-jerker in which we were meant to thrill at Tsotsi’s sudden transformation from creep to citizen, or it could have stayed true to life and realized that change is more subtle than that, particularly since the easier impulse is to resist it. Director Hood goes for the latter, and as such, his movie has a power it otherwise might have lacked.

Grade: B+

On HD DVD

SLEEPY HOLLOW, directed by Tim Burton, written by Andrew Kevin Walker, 110 minutes, rated R.

Tim Burton’s 1999 film, “Sleepy Hollow,” now available on HD DVD in a great-looking, high definition print, plucks what it wants from Washington Irving’s “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow,” severs what it doesn’t, and rewrites a story that needed no changes at all.

For fans of the classic, it’s disconcerting to sit through Burton’s version, especially since Ichabod Crane (Johnny Depp) is now a New York police constable and not a school teacher. More curious is the diminished role of Brom Van Brunt (Casper Van Dien), whose presence is never given the importance Irving gave it in the original.

But then “Sleepy Hollow” has its own ideas about what it should be and works on two different planes – the visual and the narrative – with neither forming a cohesive whole.

Burton and his cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki have cranked up the fog machines and dimmed the moon to create a somber, richly atmospheric film that is beautiful to look at, but the film’s characters struggle to connect with any of it. They’re too bridled with camp, too emotionally removed, too oddly inhuman. Some might argue that that’s Burton’s style, but in “Beetlejuice,” “Edward Scissorhands” and the first two Batman films, which preceded “Hollow,” he nevertheless was able to use his unusual characters to form an emotional bond with his audience, something he doesn’t do here.

Since Depp and Christina Ricci are at the heart of this film, much of its success rests on them. Ricci doesn’t come through. As Katrina Van Tassel, she is flat, never once convincing us that she is this character, which undermines whatever chemistry she could have had with Depp, whose mannered performance is one of the film’s selling points.

If “Sleepy Hollow” fails with Ricci, it more than compensates with Miranda Richardson’s mincing performance as Lady Van Tassel and with the spectacular vision of the Headless Horseman himself. Here, Burton triumphs. With expertly choreographed scenes of action, this Horseman rides, spectacularly swinging his blade as he literally severs dozens of heads.

If that’s your thing, this film won’t disappoint. But if you were hoping for more from Burton, a director whose work has the distinction of being instantly recognizable, “Sleepy Hollow” is so hollow, it echoes.

Grade: B-

Visit www.weekinrewind.com, the archive of Bangor Daily News film critic Christopher Smith’s reviews, which appear Mondays in Discovering, Fridays in Happening, and Weekends in Television. He may be reached at Christopher@weekinrewind.com.

The Video/DVD corner

Renting a video or a DVD? NEWS film critic Christopher Smith can help. Below are his grades of recent releases in video stores. Those in bold print are new to video stores this week.

Basic Instinct 2 – D+

Big Momma’s House 2 – D

Breakfast on Pluto – B

Brokeback Mountain – A-

Capote – A

Cheaper by the Dozen 2 – C-

Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe – A

The Constant Gardener – A-

Date Movie – D-

Derailed – C+

Eight Below – B+

Enter the Dragon: HD DVD – A

Failure to Launch – C-

The Family Stone – D

Freedomland – C-

Fun with Dick and Jane – C

GOOD NEIGHBORS: COMPLETE SERIES FOUR – B+

Good Night, and Good Luck – A-

The Hills Have Eyes – D

A History of Violence – A

Hoodwinked – C

Howl’s Moving Castle – A-

Junebug- A

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang – B+

Lara Croft: Tomb Raider – HD DVD – D+

Last Holiday – B

The Libertine -D

Martha Stewart’s Guests: Master Chefs -B+

The Matador – B+

Match Point -A

Memoirs of a Geisha – C+

Munich – A-

Nanny McPhee – B-

North Country – C

Oliver Twist – B+

Paradise Now – A-

The Pink Panther – C+

Pride & Prejudice – A

Prime – B-

The Producers – B+

Red Eye – B+

Rent – C-

Rumor Has It… – C-

Sahara: HD DVD -C+

Shakespeare Behind Bars -A-

Shopgirl – B+

Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow: HD DVD – A-

16 Blocks -B

The Squid and the Whale – B+

Syriana – B+

Transamerica – B

Underworld: Evolution – C-

An Unfinished Life – C-

Waiting for God: Season 1 – A-

Walk the Line – A-

Wallace & Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit – A

The Warrior – B