Yesterday

Once a month for my Global Sociology class we gather together late at night to watch a foreign film. This evening was one of those nights. I put on all of my layers and left the comfort and warmth of my dorm room to head to the farthest possible building where the film was being shown. It was bone chillingly cold outside, and the whole time I was walking there I kept thinking to myself “This had better be worth it.”

Yesterday was the title of the film. I knew nothing about it, except that it depicted life in South Africa. 94 minutes later I was sitting in my seat trying desperately not to cry. The film was simple it told the story of one woman, her husband, and her daughter. That is all. It took place over the course of only one year. Yesterday, the wife and mother, learns that she has HIV. Her husband has contracted the illness as well and is suffering much more so than she is. He is forced to leave his job in Johannesburg and come home to their small village. The villagers are frightened and do not want the husband around, so Yesterday and Beauty, her daughter, build a make-shift hospital for him. Eventually the husband dies and Yesterday realizes that she too will die soon. The most emotionally intense scene in the film occurs right after the death of her husband. Yesterday is so upset and angry that she destroys her hospital with a sledgehammer. It doesn’t sound like much, but the grief on her face, the stark African landscape, and the music in the background make it one of the most upsetting scenes I have ever seen.

Yesterday is intense, simple, and poignant. Exactly what a film should be.