AIDS

good thoughts! it's all speculations but since they features the aids billboards so prominently it not too much of a stretch. it certainly is a topic which concerns a lot of people especially in africa.

AIDS is the biggest issue in South Africa, particularly among 'Africans' or 'blacks'. So any film trying to make a point about the difficulties of life in South Africa would have to feature AIDS, though I felt that, like real life, it is something that is there as permanent background rather than a foreground issue. Also, rather than Tsotsi's mother being infected from another man, it is more likely that Tsotsi's father infected her by sleeping around himself. This suspicion is supported the first time Tsotsi changes the baby's nappy. He uses newspaper and one of the headlines is something along the lines of 'Most Women Infected by Their Husbands' or something like that.

I didn't notice the AIDS references, the only times I thought about it were with Tsotsi's ill mother and the formula milk.

Perhaps the father's anger was because he had infected her? When he told Tsotsi to stay away from her I assumed it was because a lot of people are ignorant about HIV/Aids and he may have been worried he would catch it just from being near her.

"Perhaps the mother of the taken baby also had AIDS (as AIDS can be transmitted through breastfeeding), thus reminding him of his own mother and his love for her" - Tsotsi wouldn't have known if the mother of the taken baby had AIDS.

I had noticed too all the AIDS billboards and also thought his mother may have had AIDS. I didn't think too much about the formula, since many healthy mothers use it also. The babies mother looked healthy. I'm sure every black in SA knows of a close person who has died from AIDS.

I agree that Tsotsi's mother probably had AIDS, but I don't think the mother of the baby did. A lot of rich women choose to use formula rather than breastfeed.


"My name is Paikea Apirana, and I come from a long line of chiefs stretching all the way back to the Whale Rider."

I actually thought that it was Tsotsi becoming himself again, he had lost himself along the way (tough life)..
Baby David helped him wanting to become a better man..
That is what i saw.

Cogito ergo sum