Velvet's Mother's Day offering, which I watched till my eyes were swollen from crying, was a bittersweet and touching drama about one mother's courage in the face of trials that would break even the strongest man.
Yesterday is a movie set in the beautiful but remote plains of Zululand, and revolves around a woman, Yesterday played by Leleti Khumalo. She lives with her seven year-old daughter in her husband's village, where she is never quite accepted by the rest of the villagers. Her husband spends the majority of the year working in the mines of Johannesburg, leaving Yesterday to fend for herself and her daughter in the village.
After a few days of feeling ill Yesterday finally manages to give in to the gentle prodding of a friend to get herself checked out. She is seen by a white woman doctor, who, after conducting a blood test, reveals to her that she has AIDS. The doctor also advises her to have her husband checked for the disease. Yesterday goes to Johannesburg, and there is beaten by her husband after she tells him the bad news.
The disease eventually catches up with her husband, and he goes home, to Yesterday and their daughter Beauty. She ends up caring for him and their daughter, but never once blames him for the disease, and even for beating her up (something which I'm sure he has done many times before).
The movie is not another movie about AIDS, and is unique in that it does not tug at your emotions with cliches and sappy dialogue. Instead, it uses the simplicity and barren harshness of the landscape, and Yesterday's soft-spoken, mild-mannered, but strong determination to remain alive, at least until her daughter starts school, to leave you breathless and wanting to cry (in my case, bawl like someone I knew just died).
The movie's dialogue is something that you'd likely hear in normal conversations, and rarely does Yesterday drop a line so profound that you'd want to post it on Friendster as a shout-out. But Yesterday shows her quiet strength in more visible ways, by getting water from the well or firewood from the bush even though she is already weak with the disease, and caring for her ailing husband, even to the point of building a small shack for them to stay in when the village finally decides to ostracize the whole family for good.
However, the movie does not only revolve around Yesterday's strengths, but also reveals that like most people, Yesterday is, above all, human. After her husband ask for her forgiveness, Yesterday tells him to go back to sleep, goes out of their house, and cries.
In the end Yesterday is able to keep her promise, and is there when Beauty, her daughter, finally starts her first day of school.
The cinematography (although I know so very little about things like cinematography, LOL!)
is very nice. There were many times in the course of the movie when I wished that I could freeze a particular scene because it looked like a perfectly composed photograph. The violence was also very believable, so much in fact that my house mates asked me what's wrong when they saw me angrily muttering curses at the TV.
No bad points, since I'm no film critic and I loved every minute of the movie. A fine movie, one worth watching for the second, third, and fourth time.
Yesterday is a movie set in the beautiful but remote plains of Zululand, and revolves around a woman, Yesterday played by Leleti Khumalo. She lives with her seven year-old daughter in her husband's village, where she is never quite accepted by the rest of the villagers. Her husband spends the majority of the year working in the mines of Johannesburg, leaving Yesterday to fend for herself and her daughter in the village.
After a few days of feeling ill Yesterday finally manages to give in to the gentle prodding of a friend to get herself checked out. She is seen by a white woman doctor, who, after conducting a blood test, reveals to her that she has AIDS. The doctor also advises her to have her husband checked for the disease. Yesterday goes to Johannesburg, and there is beaten by her husband after she tells him the bad news.
The disease eventually catches up with her husband, and he goes home, to Yesterday and their daughter Beauty. She ends up caring for him and their daughter, but never once blames him for the disease, and even for beating her up (something which I'm sure he has done many times before).
The movie is not another movie about AIDS, and is unique in that it does not tug at your emotions with cliches and sappy dialogue. Instead, it uses the simplicity and barren harshness of the landscape, and Yesterday's soft-spoken, mild-mannered, but strong determination to remain alive, at least until her daughter starts school, to leave you breathless and wanting to cry (in my case, bawl like someone I knew just died).
The movie's dialogue is something that you'd likely hear in normal conversations, and rarely does Yesterday drop a line so profound that you'd want to post it on Friendster as a shout-out. But Yesterday shows her quiet strength in more visible ways, by getting water from the well or firewood from the bush even though she is already weak with the disease, and caring for her ailing husband, even to the point of building a small shack for them to stay in when the village finally decides to ostracize the whole family for good.
However, the movie does not only revolve around Yesterday's strengths, but also reveals that like most people, Yesterday is, above all, human. After her husband ask for her forgiveness, Yesterday tells him to go back to sleep, goes out of their house, and cries.
In the end Yesterday is able to keep her promise, and is there when Beauty, her daughter, finally starts her first day of school.
The cinematography (although I know so very little about things like cinematography, LOL!)
is very nice. There were many times in the course of the movie when I wished that I could freeze a particular scene because it looked like a perfectly composed photograph. The violence was also very believable, so much in fact that my house mates asked me what's wrong when they saw me angrily muttering curses at the TV.
No bad points, since I'm no film critic and I loved every minute of the movie. A fine movie, one worth watching for the second, third, and fourth time.
