Yesterday

Yesteday was an impressive movie for me since I have never looked at AIDS in such a near and tangible way.The start point of the movie is a long road in African beautiful deserts where is restricted with barbed wire from the rest of the world. When you see the sky and the earth touch each other as they are ready to press a young slim black woman and her little daughter. Yesterday has a nice innocent face which crystalizes her heartily pain and eagerness to keep on for Beauty very well. The little girl,named Beauty,is the representative of a new African generation,not satisfied with her primitive life, asks about being a bird to fly or having a motorcycle to be speedy and comfortable.That is admirable while Yesterday illiterate is so ambitious for Beauty to start school.It gives you the sense of progress of the continent which always was narrated inferior and savage. Another justification the movie gives for African roughness is the low-level facilities exist.Yesterday and her husband are victims of AIDS because poverty makes them so far from each other that her husband betrays the family for whom day and night he overworks. Yesterday's illness is also distinguished very late and she should make a quarantine for her husband when there is no bed for him in the hospital.However, it sounds people got used to it and even such a terrible disease is faced with deep understanding but coldness. The movie is very female-oriented in a society which looks a masculine one.The most successful and efficient characters are women like Yesterday,the teacher and the doctor. Yesterday is the representative of the traditional society,too. She is given AIDS by her husband, but she bears his kicks and harshness. The movie music which is African well transfers the nature of Africa to the audience. The movie clearly is ordered to inform about AIDS but in an efficient story and setting.

I will be candid and divulge my biases. I am a person with AIDS and cancer. I am 55 years old. I have seen most of the AIDS movies, made for better or worse over the years. I have no particular associations with Africa. A rare 10 vote goes to this film because it is, in its absolute simplicity, a perfect primer on the effects of AIDS on plain and simple lives. There are no greeting card sunsets. There are no weepy hand-holding scenes between the rich parent/spouse/sibling and "the victim" on the lawn of a palatial estate in America. There is exhausting repetition of the details of hard lives. There is the mean ignorance of people who see themselves as unaffected and superior. There is the sudden dependence of the counter dependent and unfaithful husband. There is the forgiveness by the infected wife, who already has too much to bear as an impoverished woman and mother. There is her faith, her dedication, her love to the end in a relationship that has brought her own early death. And there is the stark and indifferent beauty of Africa itself, photographed by a lover's eye. There are no surprises here for anyone, unless he has lived with his head up his Developed-World assets. There is just a map to better understanding of a largely shared human condition.

As an American student, my understanding of HIV/AIDS is usually done by research and books from class. This movie so strongly corresponds to much of the information given in books like "African Feminism" and "Black Death: AIDS in Africa" to name a few. The depiction of Yesterday's grief and acceptance, in addition to her husband's denial, rings true and brings tears to your eyes. One interesting point is the fact that HIV is not even mentioned until half way through the movie, even then it is called 'the virus.' This could mimic the attitude of silence by Africans on the issue. Other fine points about this film include the fact that is truly one story. Yesterday is not then compared to thousands of other dying women, although we know that this is the case. We see the world through her eyes and in her small village. While the pacing sometimes may drag, it is a spectacular film spoken in the beautiful Zulu language. I would definitely recommend it and see it more than once.

An achingly beautiful film that is truly sublime in its simplicity. Leleti Khumalo, who plays "Yesterday", is utter enveloping to watch as she juggles her relationship with her daughter Beauty, her chores that are a matter of survival in the Zulu village, and her secret of a virus that will "stop her from living." Her strength and warmth in her vision of people even clouds her judgement when it comes to her relationship with her husband who works far away in Johannesburg. When the doctor at the clinic asks her how she got named "Yesterday," she answers: "It was my father. He always thought yesterday was better than today or tomorrow. But that was a long time ago."

YESTERDAY is a film that settles into your heart to remind us how treasureable life is. Few films made with such utter simplicity of focus have addressed a world crisis issue in the form of one couple than this and for that reason alone this film should be widely seen. But there are many other reasons to pay attention to this South African movie.

Yesterday (Leleti Khumalo) is an eloquently beautiful Zulu woman who discovers she has been infected with HIV from her coal miner husband (Kenneth Khambula). She confronts him with that fact and his response is embarrassed rage and physical abuse. Yesterday is concerned that her daughter live to attend school and have a chance at a better life. She is befriended by the school teacher (Harriet Lenabe) and by the doctor in whom she confides (Camilla Walker). Growing ill from AIDS, Yesterday's husband returns home and seeks Yesterday's succor and forgiveness on his deathbed. The power of Yesterday's spirit only grows stronger with every sad reality of her life: she is determined to stay alive until her daughter is safely in school and the future that transition promises.

Each of these actors provide astonishing performances, so delicately nuanced that they are able to pry open the heart. The majestically beautiful scenery of South Africa, with its mist-clothed mountains and far reaching stretches of horizons, plays an important role in this story: nature remains the guardian of mortals. Director and writer Darrell Roodt has a little masterpiece of a film here and one that deserves all of our attention. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp