Tonight NewMexiKen watched another outstanding foreign film that I had somehow added to my Netflix queue — Yesterday, a film I watched in Zulu with English subtitles.
As with many foreign films, the action here moves at an unhurried, less frentic pace than so much American film-making, where camera movement and split-second cut-aways resemble nothing more than 8mm home movies. In Yesterday, the camera stays on a subject long enough for the viewer to enter the character, to begin to understand (perhaps) and empathize (perhaps).*
Yesterday is the name of the lead character, a small-village Zulu woman of about 25, played by the beautiful actress Leleti Khumalo. Yesterday has a five-year-old daughter, Beauty, and a husband, John, working in the mines in Johannesburg. The movie opens with the mother and daughter walking (for more two hours we learn) so that Yesterday can visit the doctor. As the movie progresses, we learn that Yesterday is very sick — about half-way through the film we learn she is HIV positive.
What follows is an extraordinarily powerful story of sadness, friendship, fear, pain, courage and love — but never really anger. If there are saints on this planet (and I believe there are), then Yesterday is surely among them.
Not to be missed.
* (It’s interesting to contrast Yesterday, an African-made movie, with the otherwise excellent The Constant Gardener, a European film about Africa, where the camera movement is so rapid, that NewMexiKen actually felt nauseated.)
There are few moving cars in this film, so no car chases, and few men, too, so no ‘splosions.
NewMexiKen wouldn’t have missed this film, but I must say I am in need of a comedy. Fortunately, Wedding Crashers is due to arrive from Netflix tomorrow.
If you aren’t completely burned out on watching films with subtitles I’d like to recommend a very, very powerful movie, “Osama,??? by Siddiq Barmak. And no it isn’t about Bin Laden.
It is however an excellent bit of cinematic wonder; a heart-wrenching movie.
I have seen “Yesterday” several times on Premium cable. I think it is an extraordinarily beautiful film, perfectly paced with the lives it portrays. It is one of the most sincerely moving films I have seen in a very long time. (I never felt the story was contrived, or that it manipulated its audience as so many films do.) It also presents a stark contrast to the busy pace of “Western” life. Though it is ultimately a story of the human condition, it makes me long for the more natural rhythms of life in Africa.