Tsotsi

Film: Tsotsi
2005

View the 2006 Academy Award-winning South African film Tsotsi. Write a postscript to the film: what happens to him and the other people in the Soweto township (especially his long-time friend and the young mother)? What happens to the victims?

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Tsotsi ends with the titular character standing in the street, surrounded by police who are ready to kill him if he makes a run for it. But I don't think David ("Tsotsi") is running anymore. He has begun to understand the consequences of his choices, and he's no longer a runaway child who is simply doing whatever it takes to stay alive in a Soweto slum. He will be arrested, and this is a good thing. He certainly deserves punishment for his crimes, but he also deserves an opportunity to turn his life around, a process he has already begun. As the film ends, he is led off to jail where he will await his trial for assault and robbery.

John and Pumla have been reunited with their child, and while they may never be able to forgive David for the suffering he has caused, they are grateful that he protected their child instead of allowing it to be harmed. By the time of David's trial, John and Pumla have sought to move on with their lives. Though they testify against him, they also request leniency, telling the court that David put himself at risk by saving John from his Butcher's attack during their robbery of the house. Pumla and John know that David is troubled and has far to go, but they know there is hope that he will be able to work toward a better life for himself.

Die Aap, David's friend and follower, is also convicted for his role in the robbery of John and Pumla's house, but he does not take the opportunity to better his life. Die Aap is still a follower and he will always look for a strong personality to provide him with leadership. He'll find a series of leaders in prison and back in the slums when he is released, with predictably bad consequences.

Boston/Teacher Boy escapes punishment for his crimes, but he continues to punish himself for his failures by wasting his life in a drunken stupor. Perhaps he meets Miriam at David's trial and they become friends; perhaps she shows him that there is a way to live decently. There is always hope for an alcoholic who is willing to change, but it will take hard work on Boston's part to face the daily struggle of poverty without numbing the pain by drinking. Perhaps someday he comes to visit David in prison and begins to understand that it is not too late for either of them. There is hope for Boston, but the odds are against him.

Miriam, the young widow, continues to support herself and her son with her income from sewing and selling her handicrafts. She testifies on behalf of David at his trial and visits him in prison because she knows that something has happened inside David. She knows that he is trying to live a better life. It's not a love story - she has her own life to live and is more than capable of taking care of herself; she is a whole person. Perhaps through her friendship, David learns how to talk about what has happened to him, and what he has done to others. By showing him kindness instead of hatred, she helps soften David and gives him hope that he will someday be able to truly care for someone else--a wife, a child, or even a friend.

Paradise Now

Film: Paradise Now
Palestine, 2005

Do you agree more with the petition to have the film removed as an award nominee or with the counter-petition? What are you reasons for favoring one side over the other?

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First of all, I can say that even without having seen the film Paradise Now, I would have signed the counter-petition in support of its nomination for an Oscar award. But more importantly, I support the right of both sides to freely express their feelings, just as I support the right of the filmmakers to create art may lend itself to problematic, even offensive interpretations. I'll get to my actual reasons for supporting this film in just a moment, but let's take set aside the issue of content and discuss what it means to be nominated for a film award.

Let's just take a look at the petition itself. It starts off with a monumental blunder: "'Paradise Now' is a movie that attempts to explain away the actions behind mass-murderers." The Cambridge Dictionary of American Idioms states that "to explain something away" is to "to invent reasons why something is unimportant." (I was pretty sure it meant that, but I had to look it up just to make sure. This is the first argument against the film, that it invents reasons why mass-murderers should not be... what? Considered mass-murderers? Taken seriously? I'm not just hacking at semantics here: I think that a good deal of the opposition to this film starts from a fundamental misunderstanding of A) what the film itself has to say and B) how that might be interpreted. There is no explaining away. There is no convincing justification given for mass-murder in this film; there is in fact no glorification of suicide bombing in this film. What we see are people negotiating the idea of murder--with themselves, with others. (Yes, the character Said uses the word "murderer" in reference to what he is about to become.) Passionate ideals on both sides are expressed. It is left to the viewer to decide what her or she has just seen. Did these filmmakers, through this movie, try to tell me that suicide-murders are honorable, praiseworthy, or excellent? Did they try to tell me that suicide-murders are futile, that they cause anguish and suffering, that they bring any cause closer to its realization?

To present alternative viewpoints in an artistic framework is not necessarily to glorify either or both, but to examine possibilities. In "Paradise Now," possibilities are examined in light of the current political, economic, and social circumstances for many people living in many different lands. The filmmakers are not murderers: they are storytellers, and it is up to the audience to provide meaning and moral to the story, if it so chooses. This is one of the marks of an excellent film on a complex subject, and because Paradise Now has so many possible interpretations, it is deserving of praise for its artistic merit alone. But it also deals with important themes, particularly in these times.

The criticism of Paradise Now I've seen repeated most often (other than the "glorification" and "justification" bit) is that it "humanizes".... what? Humans? The letter written by the parent of a suicide-bombing victim, which was appended to the petition, even says so: "I watched the movie 'Paradise Now' trying to understand what it is trying to say, what message it carries? That the murderer is human? He is not. That he has doubts? He has none."

I certainly have empathy for the parent who wrote that statement, but I have to disagree. Murderers are human, and this fact is one that we continually shy away from in dealing with the causes and consequences of cruel, brutal, criminal acts. When we call them "monsters" or "animals" we impose a voluntary restriction on ourselves: we limit their moral culpability. Let's not kid ourselves into believing that every suicide-bomber, every rapist, every liar, every embezzler, can't tell that what they are doing will cause overwhelming suffering, that they have the power within their grasp to choose not to do what they are about to do. They are not inhuman and this is exactly what makes them so frightening, so extremely dangerous, and so in need of comprehension. We have to understand why the problem exists in order to take steps to stop it. To imagine otherwise is akin to saying "It doesn't matter why the Earth's getting hotter; we just need to stop it." If you don't understand why and how, you cannot intelligently and effectively bring about the change you seek.

Let's peruse some of the commentary appended to a sampling of the petition's 38,667 signatures (as of January 6, 2009):

15007.

These 'people' don't deserve our sympathy.

27240.

The concept of glorifying these animals is an abomination.

34740.

Do Suicide Bombers require humanizing? Who's next?

24970.

I really think that ''Paradise now'' is very dangerous giving a kind of excuse and humanization to terrorists.

30253.

shame on the academy for supporting those animals !

37841.

I hope that the world will wake up and stop "understanding" killers and murderers.

37815.

for the sake of humanity, don't humanize those who wish to blow you to pieces!

Over and over, the message is the same. These animals/'people'/ are not even worth knowing about - their stories are irrelevant to their actions. Who's "explaining away" here?

There are other arguments and indictments contained in the petition: "This movie tries to say that suicide murder is legitimate when you feel you have exhausted all other means." No it doesn't--these people have not exhausted all other means. Where does it say that suicide murder is legitimate? That's the view of some of the characters, but not all, and some characters argue very forcefully--both with words and with expressions--against murder as a solution. Whatever one takes from the ending, it's no see that nothing much will be changing after the next murder, or the next, or the next, because it's an endless cycle that begets itself and never gets to the core of the problem. This film doesn't let anyone off the hook--it gives no free passes and proposes no sure-fire solutions. It presents problems and possibilities, and we, have the privilege and responsibility of seeking the solutions to the puzzles we have before us. We give the film whatever meaning it has. Is that meaning a world of fear and inhumanity and glorified murder? Is it a world of paradox, of pain, of endurance, of each individual's own capacity to contribute to the world in which they live, for better or worse?

It's not a film of glorification, but it is a film of humanization and because of this, it has considerably more impact than any banal piece of propaganda, perhaps even more impact than a video report of actual bombings in which actual people are dying. Where's the petition to sign against that?