South Africa’s plight, updated

TSOTSI isn’t a likable fellow. In just 30 minutes, the title character in the Oscar-nominated foreign film kills one man, beats another until he’s unrecognizable and shoots a new mother in the stomach. He then steals the woman’s car, kidnaps her 3-month-old infant and forces a second woman to wet-nurse the baby at gunpoint.

That audiences eventually empathize with such a despicable character is testimony to the many elements that blended in the making of South Africa’s best foreign language film nominee -- the power, authenticity and universality of Tsotsi’s life story, the beautifully captured backdrop of a post-apartheid Johannesburg and the talents of home-grown actors, many of whom had never before appeared on camera.

“Tsotsi” -- which means “thug” or “gangster” in the South African street vernacular, or Tsotsitaal that is used throughout the movie -- tracks the coming of age of a destitute and violent 19-year-old criminal who lives in a shantytown, having no memory of his past and no hope for his future. It is based on the 1980 Athol Fugard novel of the same name.

In the book, the action unfolds in the ‘50s, when the country’s National Party government was becoming increasingly repressive of the country’s black majority. The film version -- adapted by writer-director Gavin Hood -- has been updated to the present but preserves the integrity of the story.

According to Fugard, it “is far and away the best film that has been made of something I have written. I would also be so bold as to say that it will rank as one of the best films ever to come out of South Africa.”

While the book addresses the white versus black politicking of apartheid directly, the film version deals with the lingering aftereffects: the poverty resulting from the country’s current 26% unemployment rate and the scores of children who’ve lost parents to AIDS. In the film, it’s poverty that drives Tsotsi toward crime and his mother’s premature death that prompts him to parent a stranger’s infant that he has no means or understanding to care for. What attracted Hood to the project was “the universal story set in a very specific and seldom-seen setting,” he said. “Tsotsi” is not an attempt to deny apartheid, he said, though he hopes it will challenge the perception that South Africa is a one-issue country.

“One of the struggles and one of the exciting things for South African filmmakers is: What stories are we allowed to tell? I hope for the industry that more and more, it will tell whatever stories it likes,” said Hood, a Johannesburg native who cut his directorial teeth in the mid ‘90s making educational films about HIV, teen prostitution and drug addiction for South Africa’s department of health.

He has two other films to his credit: the 22-minute short “The Storekeeper” (which won 13 international film festival awards) and his feature debut about a ritual murder, “A Reasonable Man,” which screened at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival and landed Hood on Variety’s list of “10 directors to watch.”

SOUTH AFRICA is home to a $350-million-a-year film industry, but little of that money is spent on South African feature films. Most of it is in foreign commercials and movie shoots that use Johannesburg, Capetown and other parts of South Africa as stand-ins for cities in other parts of the world, not as a backdrop for locally based stories.

But that is changing. Ten years ago, only one or two South African films were made each year. Last year, there were a dozen. In 2005, the country scored its first Oscar nomination for best foreign language film with “Yesterday,” about a woman whose husband infects her with HIV. This year, “Tsotsi” has earned the country’s second nomination in the same category.

“One of the things I’m most relieved and grateful for is the fact that ‘Tsotsi’ is being well received. It makes me feel that I haven’t set the industry back, because lurking in the back of your mind when you’re making this film is the feeling of responsibility,” said Hood, 42. “If you screw up, it doesn’t encourage investment.”

Hood has little reason to worry. In South Africa, the film starring unknowns has been breaking box office records since its Feb. 3 release. On its opening weekend, it drew 40% more viewers than “The Constant Gardener” and 25% more than “North Country” did on their opening weekends -- not bad, considering those two films feature stars who have also earned Oscar nominations, Rachel Weisz as best supporting actress and Charlize Theron as best actress.

“Tsotsi,” which is subtitled, opens Friday in Los Angeles and New York.