YESTERDAY Review – Leleti Khumalo d: Darrell Roodt

YESTERDAY (2004)

Direction and screenplay: Darrell Roodt

Cast: Leleti Khumalo, Lihle Mvelase, Kenneth Kambule, Harriet Lehabe, Camilla Walker

Oscar Movies

Recommended with Reservations

Leleti Khumalo, Lihle Mvelase, Yesterday

To date, nowhere has the AIDS pandemic been felt more strongly than in Sub-Saharan Africa, home to approximately 10% of the world's population and to about two-thirds of the planet's 30-35 million AIDS cases. In the past thirty 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 South African drama 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 particular woman, the (for non-Zulus) quirkily named Yesterday represents millions of other women, men, and children who are now suffering or who have perished from the effects of HIV in that part of the world.

Yesterday (Leleti Khumalo), an illiterate woman living in a remote Zulu village, ekes out a living tilling the soil. So named because her father believed that things had been better in the past, Yesterday's day-to-day existence consists of a series of major chores, including walking to the nearest hospital, 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 on working to support her family. She decides she will not succumb to the disease until her daughter starts going to school to get the education she herself never had.

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 region's magnificent vistas. Surrounded by enormous expanses of dry grassland and hillsides, the area around Yesterday's small village 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, 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 physical weakness.

As for Yesterday, far from being a mere victim, she is a woman who draws strength from despair. 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 had previously worked for Roodt in both Sarafina! (1992) and Cry, the Beloved Country (1995). Khumalo effortlessly carries Yesterday on her shoulders while delivering one of the best performances of 2004 — or of any other year.

Note: A version of this Yesterday review was initially posted in December 2004.