Yesterday Review

Yesterday is the first internationally distributed feature in the Zulu language. It’s by South African writer/director Darrell James Roodt who also made Cry, The Beloved Country and the musical, Sarafina.The star of Sarafina, Leleti Khumalo, plays Yesterday, a woman who lives in a remote village in Zulu Land with her seven year old daughter Beauty - Lihle Mvelase. Theirs is a simple existence, with little money, no modern conveniences and a husband who works as a miner in faraway Johannesburg. Yesterday’s future is shattered when she is diagnosed with AIDS and must confront her husband who is in denial. With the support of her one friend, school teacher Harriet Lehabe, Yesterday’s focus narrows. She wants to live long enough to see her daughter start the schooling she never had. Yesterday is an overwhelmingly beautiful film - simply constructed yet powerful in its personal exploration of the impact of AIDS. Leleti Khumalo’s Yesterday conveys courage, warmth and tenderness in the midst of a harrowing story. Add to this Michael Brierley’s cinematography, which captures South Africa’s harsh landscape with profound clarity, and you have a film that balances the hardships of life with the strength of the human spirit without stooping to sentimentality.