Yesterday
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Movie Reviews of Yesterday
Movie Review: Wonderful!
Summary: 5 Stars
This movie is so moving. It shows the true impact AIDS has on a rural South African black community. A must see!Movie Review: Yesterday
Summary: 5 Stars
Compelling movie about who the true victims are in everyday life and how they endure to the end. Very good.Movie Review: Yesterday
Summary: 5 Stars
One of the best movies I have ever seen. It is beautiful, sad and inspirational all at the same time.Movie Review: Personification Of A Merciless Malignant Malady
Summary: 4 Stars
Yesterday embraces the demoralizing tragedy that is the ever increasing rise in the incidence of AIDS/HIV infections in South africa. It outlines the course of events following the infection of black women and the depressing, yet inevitable outcome for the children of these women. It projects the feelings of desperation that these women are forced to cope with in the face of dying before their children are old enough to care for themselves; Even more tragic is the fact that the degrading Pass Laws contributed toward the acceleration of the the spread of the disease in women and very often their unborn babies.The black men had no choice but to travel far distances to seek employment on the Johannesburg Mines in order to support their families, however meager the remuneration. Because they were seperated from their wives for long periods of time, they often resorted to sleeping with prostitutes who sold their bodies in an attempt to feed and clothe their own children and who were themselves infected with the deadly virus. The wives and children were not allowed to accompany them; They would have been arrested for being in the 'wrong place', as dictated by the Pass Laws. Women who were left in the villages had to cope with very difficult, often unacceptable living conditions, and had little or no access to medical attention, which caused the syndrome to evolve into a death sentence. The beginning of the end for Yesterday, played by the very graceful Leleti Khumalo, is marked by her second attempt at seeing the compassionate village doctor, Camilla Walker. Yesterday had already begun to manifest signs of the complications of AIDS, and was showing suttle signs of growing weaker. yet, her determination to care for her little girl became her driving force to walk the many miles to see the village doctor. The diagnosis is confirmed after a blood test, and the doctor advises Yesterday to alert her husband, who is away from home and working on a mine in Johannesburg. His reaction is one of rage, disbelief and again rage. He lashes out at Yesterday as she is the bearer of the life-altering news. Ofcourse, he fails to apologize or even acknowledge the fact that his poor judgement had created a cloud of doom for himself as well as for Yesterday and their child. Yesterday returns to the village and to a very uncertain future. As the disease progresses, her husband begins to suffer from the more undignified side effects that the other miners find offensive, such as chronic diarrhea-there are no toilets underground.He loses his job and is forced to return to the village, where ignorance leads the other villagers to treat him as though he were an epidemic. Yesterday builds a make-shift hospital with her bare hands, which she uses to shelter her husband from the soul-destroying village gossip. Placing her own medical needs on hold, she cares for her sick husband and daughter. Her husband dies, allowing Yesterday the opportunity to recognize the graveness of her own deteriorating health. Leaving her child behind without seeing her on the road to obtaining a decent education disturbs her more than dying. Her only friend, the school teacher, Harriet Lenabe, promises to care for Yesterday's little girl as if she were her own, after Yesterday's passing. Yesterday's love of her child sustains her until the little girl's first day at school. She stands at the gate of the school. It is a bitter sweet moment in her life as she beams with pride, watching the little girl, and cries inwardly, knowing what bitter fate awaits both of them. However, she becomes more accepting of the disease that will slowly consume her until she too will die, as her husband did. The ending leaves one with an array of emotions - sadness, anger, emptiness and anguish, knowing that in South Africa this scene is replayed ad nauseam. An infinite number of mothers are being infected every day. Many are unaware that they have already been infected. After a complicated and soul destroying cycle of events (as they are poor, many end up being treated as outcasts, have no access to medical care, have no transport to obtain medical care and are not able to care for their children), they die without dignity, leaving behind children who are not old enough to take care of themselves. With no one to take care of them, many children end up as orphans or street children which has become yet another serious outcome of the Epidemic. An estimated five and a half million people were infected with AIDS and HIV in 2009, leaving behind close to three million AIDS orphans! I highly recommend this movie. It is sad, but graceful. Through the Eyes of a South African Woman and Other ChildrenMovie Review: Today
Summary: 4 Stars
I bought "Yesterday" with no misgivings. I understood that it was an Oscar-nominated film in the category of Best Foreign Language movie. For me, that category holds lots of promise for a movie; one that is cinematically sound but little known in the US due to the language barrier. "Yesterday" lived up to those anticipations. It is a story of a woman who finds that she is infected with AIDS. It gives a look at the social stigma as it was felt by her in her native South Africa. It also gives a look at a person whose determination helps her to remain focussed while much around her crumbles. In that sense it is a moving tale of courage mixed with a look at life in a rural South African village and the challenges that adds to Yesterday's dilemna.
The leading actress, Leleti Khumalo, has an infectuous smile that endears us to her from the start. The entire cast was new to me and I confess that I was aprehensive when I saw that the movie was produced by HBO Films. I was afraid to find a "made for (cable) TV" look about it. I'm glad to say that my fears were relieved (However, I fully expected the film to close with an on-screen lecture about the ravaging effects of the spread of AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa...it didn't). If the movie has any shortcomings then, for me, they lie in its' failure to more fully develop the community that Yesterday lives in. While much was covered in that area, much was left to our imagination.