YESTERDAY by Darrell Roodt
by Andre Soares
Yesterday (2004) 
Direction and screenplay: Darrell Roodt. Cast: Leleti Khumalo, Lihle Mvelase, Kenneth Kambule, Harriet Lehabe
CRY, THE BELOVED CONTINENT
To date, nowhere has the AIDS pandemic been more felt than in Sub-Saharan Africa, home to approximately 10% of the world population and to more than 70% of the planet’s 40 million AIDS cases. In the past twenty-five years, it is estimated that more than 20 million Sub-Saharan Africans have died from complications of the disease. Even today, drug cocktails that are relatively accessible in other parts of the globe are still beyond the means of the vast majority of Africans.
Writer-director Darrell Roodt’s Yesterday is set in this catastrophic scenario. The film depicts the effects of AIDS in the life of a young Zulu woman who contracts HIV from her husband. Although Roodt’s narrative maintains its focus on the plight of one specific woman, the (for non-Zulus) quirkily named heroine Yesterday is a representative of the millions of other women, men, and children who are now suffering or who have suffered from the effects of HIV in that part of the world.
Even if marred by a slow-moving second half and by sporadic incursions into melodrama, Yesterday has much to recommend it. For starters, director-screenwriter Darrell Roodt and cinematographer Michael Brierley make sure we are transported from our movie seats to Zululand, as Brierley’s lenses beautifully capture the magnificent vistas of Yesterday’s remote Zulu village. Surrounded by enormous expanses of dry grassland and hillsides, the area is reminiscent in scope to the American West’s panoramic views as portrayed in the films of John Ford.
Additionally, Roodt’s delicate, compassionate touch helps to humanize the film’s characters, whether it is the doctor who first diagnoses Yesterday’s illness or a kind-hearted teacher at the Zulu village. (They are movingly played by Camilla Walker and Harriet Lehabe, respectively). Even Yesterday’s husband (Kenneth Kambule), although initially seen as the villain of the piece, is transformed into a pitiful figure, a man unable to come to terms with his deteriorating health and worsening physical weakness.
As for Yesterday, far from being a mere victim, she is a woman who draws strength from despair. She is determined not to succumb to the disease until her young daughter, Beauty (Lihle Mvelase), starts school. As a result of Yesterday’s refusal to feel sorry for herself, her suffering becomes all the more heartbreaking. Such mixture of resilience and simplicity is brought to life by Yesterday’s greatest asset: Leleti Khumalo, a sensitive, intuitive actress who effortlessly carries the picture on her shoulder while delivering one of the best performances of 2004 — or of any other year.
Reviewed at the AFI FEST.
In a small, remote Zulu village, an illiterate woman, Yesterday (Leleti Khumalo) ekes out a living tilling the soil. Her day-to-day existence is composed of a series of major chores, including walking to the doctor, located several kilometers away, to find out why she has been feeling so tired lately.
When Yesterday discovers she has contracted HIV from her husband, John (Kenneth Kambule), a miner working in Johannesburg, she travels to the big city to tell him. At first, John violently refuses to accept the truth, but some time later he shows up at the Zulu village, considerably weakened.
It’s up to Yesterday to care for John, for their young daughter, Beauty (Lihle Mvelase), and for herself. Yesterday’s health may be failing, but she still needs to keep working to support the family. She decides she will not succumb to the disease until her daughter starts going to school to get the education she never had.
"There’s a tradition among Zulu people to give their children names like ‘First Born’ or ‘Confidence’ or ‘Tomorrow.’ And I thought that ‘Yesterday’ had beautiful melancholic reverberations. It had such resonance that your parents would give you this and you would live your entire life with it." Director Darrell Roodt, as quoted in the official Yesterday website.
Yesterday is the first Zulu-language film made for the international market.
Yesterday is the first South African film to have been nominated for a Best Foreign-Language Academy Award.
Leleti Khumalo had already worked with Darrell Roodt in Sarafina! (1992) and Cry, the Beloved Country (1995).
The four-week shoot took place in Zululand in central eastern South Africa.
Yesterday won the Best Film Award at the 3rd Pune International Film Festival in India. The filmmakers have donated the US$20,000 prize to HIV/AIDS organizations in India and South Africa.
The Nelson Mandela Foundation has been using Yesterday to promote HIV-AIDS awareness in Africa. According to UNAIDS estimates, at the end of 2003 there were 5.3 million people in South Africa living with HIV. That figure represents 13.25% of the country’s 40 million citizens, and places South Africa as the country with the highest number of HIV-carriers in the world. (In 2005, however, a Statistics South Africa report stated that the country has approximately 4.6 million infected citizens, which would place it after India’s 5.1 million HIV-positive citizens. Thus far, UNAIDS has stuck to its estimates for the AIDS pandemic in South Africa and elsewhere in Africa.)
According to UNAIDS, 21.5% of South Africa’s adult population has been infected with HIV.
According to Africa Action, AIDS has reduced the average life expectancy in Sub-Saharan Africa by 15 years. Children represent one quarter of all AIDS deaths in that part of world.
Less than 1% of Sub-Saharan Africans have access to drug cocktails that have sharply reduced AIDS deaths in other parts of the world.
In Yesterday, Leleti Khumalo’s character explains to her doctor (Camilla Walker) that her father believed that things had been better in the past; hence her name, Yesterday.
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4 Responses to “YESTERDAY by Darrell Roodt”
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Note: All comments are moderated. Different views and opinions are welcome, but abusive/bigoted/flaming comments will NOT be approved. Also, please be aware that the Alternative Film Guide has NO contact information for the talent mentioned in this blog or any information pertaining to or access to distributors'/producers' film prints.
Hello,
not so much a comment, its a query that Ihope you may help me with.Iam
looking for a35mm print for the film yesterday! CAN YOU HELP?
Tried everywhere but seems it was not distributed inthe uk, any idea is
highly appreciated.It is for acharity screening on World AIDS DAY that i
am trying to organise.
thankyou, hope to hear from you.
Regards
Lucy
Lucy,
I’d suggest you contact the film’s South African producers.
Sorry I can’t be of further assistance.
Hi! I’m trying to reach Darrell Roodt in order to invite him to Venezuela, (December 12 to 18, 2008) on behalf of AFRICALA The First African Film Festival in Latin America. I would very much appreciate if you could send him this invitation. Please confirm to Flavio Florencio email address: ff@africala.org
I’m sorry, but we don’t have filmmakers’ contact information at the Alternative Film Guide.
I’d suggest you contact the film’s distributors.