Monday, April 10, 2006
Soweto Shantytown Serenade
The blogger has been AWOL of late, recovering from the ups and downs of a rollercoaster deal that miraculously concluded on Friday.. It's springtime here in New York. April showers drenched my Saturday, but I did get to see "Tsotsi" with Christi at the Angelika Film Center on Houston & Mercer. This South African film, which promises and intense, sometimes painful, but ultimately enirching experience, walked away with the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar last month, and with good reason. This very personal and unusual story is based on Athol Fugard's prize-winning novel about a hardened thug whose heart begins to thaw - but it's a story told without sentimentality - it feels organic, with good story and character development, but no predictability. Set in the million-strong shantytown of Soweto, in the shadow of Johannesburg's skyscrapers (an African Rio de Janeiro, with no beach), and briefly in the home of an upper-middle-class black couple that wouldn't look out of place in the San Fernando Valley. The film's languages are Zulu, Xhosa, and Afrikaans, but it's impressive how many English expressions have seeped into the spoken lexicon of these characters. Finally, the soundtrack, a blend of traditional Xhosa & Zulu music and hip-hop, is a delight.
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