yesterday ( 2004 film )
darrell roodt’s film yesterday (2003) is the recipient of numerous international film festival awards including an academy award nomination for best foreign language film .
everything you ever wanted to know about the failed 2004 batman vs. superman movie
' yesterday' movie review: memorable aids drama in zululand © 2004–2018 alt film guide and / or author (s). text not to be reproduced without prior written consent .
primer (2004) is a complex and challenging film. this article is intended to help you get the most enjoyment out of watching it .
yesterday (2004). dir. / scr. : darrell roodt. cast: leleti khumalo. lihle mvelase. kenneth kambule. harriet lehabe. camilla walker .
so based on what we know about batman v. superman, how does it approach the clash between the two heroes differently than the 2004 film would have ?
' yesterday' movie: south african aids drama with leleti khumalo and lihle mvelase .
images of lihle mvelase, kenneth kambule, and leleti khumalo in yesterday movie: hbo films .
i intend writing about the represantation of black women bodies in media using a gender focus. my special reference is on the film yesterday as well as the caster semenya case .
shot overs 3 years, with a small crew of 5 people ,
hier, aujourd' hui, hier
(
yesterday, today, yesterday
) is the first feature film from xavier beauchesne - rondeau and is a completely... see full summary »
i have been trying to find a cd of the soundtrack for “yesterday” without success. any suggestions ?
such mixture of resilience and simplicity is brought to life by yesterday' s greatest asset: leleti khumalo, a sensitive, intuitive actress who had previously worked for roodt in both sarafina! (1992) and cry the beloved country (1995). khumalo effortlessly carries yesterday on her shoulders while delivering one of the best performances of 2004 – or of any other year .
the film opened last week (14 june 2004) at the suncoast casino cinema marking the official opening of the 25th edition of the durban film festival. it goes on general release on 30 july and then heads for the international circuit. if you' re proudly south african... : watch it with a critical eye .
after falling ill, yesterday learns that she is hiv positive. with her husband in denial and young daughter to tend to, yesterday' s one goal is to live long enough to see her child go to school .
aids movie' yesterday': zulu - language drama with leleti khumalo, lihle mvelase, and kenneth kambule .
as for yesterday, far from being a mere victim, she is a woman who draws strength from despair. as a result of yesterday' s refusal to feel sorry for herself, her suffering becomes all the more heartbreaking .
every film that has ever been nominated for an academy award in any category. enjoy !
is the first fully fledged isizulu feature film with english subtitles. it was shot in the bergville area of kwazulu - natal. a moving story of an illiterate young mother named yesterday (played by leleti khumalo of
“‘yesterday’ is a moving and emotional journey as yesterday deals with her diagnosis, her daughter’s future and her husband’s illness. after her diagnosis is revealed, yesterday receives little support from the tight - knit village where she lives, once she was part of the community but now she is ostracised, her only friend being a teacher she befriended on the road to the neighbouring village .
, who yesterday consulted after two attempts to see a doctor at the local clinic had failed, was also suspect. during the consultation she instructed yesterday :
get rid of your anger, then i will heal you .
i' ve consulted many
“to some extent, this gives the film space and scope, a certain openness: in some ways, yesterday’s suffering seems specific, in some ways emblematic. there’s something restrained about the film, a feeling that it, too, like its central character, is holding something back. yet it is this restraint and openness that invites us to reflect beyond the point where roodt chooses to end the film – to other yesterdays, their daughters, and their futures. ”
a woman' s journey. in a zulu village, yesterday is a cheerful mother with an inquisitive five - year - old child, beauty. yesterday has a persistent cough, and after several attempts to see the doctor at a regional clinic, she gets a diagnosis. she goes immediately to jo' burg, where her husband is a miner. then she must deal with consequences. her singular motivation is to see that beauty enrolls in school the next fall. the film begins and ends with yesterday walking on a road .
i' m sorry, but we don' t have filmmakers' contact information at the alternative film guide .
shot overs 3 years, with a small crew of 5 people ,
hier, aujourd' hui, hier
(
yesterday, today, yesterday
) is the first feature film from xavier beauchesne - rondeau and is a completely independent effort that explores, with sincerity, the ups and downs of love stories. the ones that leave scars. the ones that force you to rethink your life .
is a powerful film that confronts the social stigma surrounding hiv / aids. it is the story of one woman' s perseverance to survive against all odds and audiences will be deeply touched by it. ? i was deeply touched, not by the lonely struggle of yesterday, but by the opportunity missed to produce a great south african film devoid of all neo - colonial stereotypes .
“yesterday is the central character in darrell james roodt’s quietly moving film – a young zulu woman, living in a small village with her daughter, while her husband works away from home in johannesburg. her father named her, she explains halfway through the movie, because he believed that yesterday was better than today. and there’s something oddly ambiguous, both melancholy and optimistic about his reasoning, in keeping with the nature of the work .
“all of these people grew up to become major players in the emerging south african film industry — which, 10 years after the fall of apartheid and the election of nelson mandela as president, is being showcased at this year’s [ 2004 ] toronto international film festival. it’s a measure of the maturing south african film scene that there were enough new titles of festival stature to justify the recognition. a few years ago there would have been only one or two, such as ‘sarafina! ’ (1992) and ‘cry, the beloved country’ (1995), both made by the pioneers singh and roodt, both starring leleti khumalo .
“the film opens with the image of a dusty, stark landscape, over which the camera moves with inexorable slowness: only gradually do we become aware of two small, isolated figures, making their way through it: yesterday (leleti khumalo) and her young daughter, beauty (lihle mvelase). they have been walking for hours: they’re going to a distant clinic to see if they can find out what has been making yesterday feel sick .
best foreign language film south africa. winner: the sea inside / mar adentro. dir. : alejandro amenábar. spain .
“never sinking into sentimentality or becoming a tool to preach regarding hiv issues, ‘yesterday’ is simplistic but also brutally honest. yesterday’s love and devotion for her child is paramount as is her loyalty to her husband and it is these virtues that are central to the movie, combined with the visually dramatic and often harsh landscape. it is hard not to feel touched by yesterday’s story as she strives to deal with her life and it is a reality check that human emotions know no boundaries. ”
the academy award for best foreign language film is handed out annually by the u. s. - based academy of motion picture arts…
leads a bunch of village women confronting yesterday about her aids - diseased husband. again, singh, it doesn' t happen like that in south african - african communities .
additionally, roodt' s delicate, compassionate touch helps to humanize the film' s characters, among them the doctor who first diagnoses yesterday' s illness or a kind - hearted teacher at the zulu village. (they are movingly played by camilla walker and harriet lehabe, respectively). even yesterday' s husband, though initially seen as the villain of the piece, is transformed into a pitiful figure, a man unable to come to terms with his deteriorating health and physical weakness .
of course, the script that’s floating around on the internet may be fake, and all the plot summaries and details in various books may be inaccurate. plus the script was probably still being reworked when the film was shelved, and it’s never fair to judge a film from a script draft, because it’s just a work in progress. we can’t know how this film would actually have turned out, full stop .
the film, which has taken in a billion dollars at the box office, took the oscars for film editing, art direction, visual effects, makeup, sound mixing and costume design. the movie also won for best adapted screenplay, best original score and best original song .
instead of confronting the social stigmas of hiv / aids, the film perpetuates them. upon hearing about yesterday' s plight, the village women violently threaten to get rid of her and her family. the viewer doesn' t get a sense of enlightenment from any member of this community. even a teacher? yesterday' s new friend seems to only make a feeble attempt to liberate a community so ignorant about hiv / aids. i thought her introduction in the plot would serve a stronger purpose .
the ballad of narayama
is a japanese film of great beauty and elegant artifice, telling a story of startling cruelty. what a space it opens…
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ring of fire keeps a sense of menace to the end, the atmosphere is tense. there is no safe haven, and beirut of yesterday becomes a chilling image of our world at war today .
update: i' ve recorded a commentary track for the film. it covers most of what' s explained below, but has some new stuff too !
“yesterday is handsomely composed and contemplative in tone, with something of the simplicity and immediacy of a parable. it confines itself carefully to its central character’s immediate situation: to her isolation, the repeated journeys she undertakes, the grimly straightforward realities of her circumstances. it shows times when yesterday is treated with harshness or apparent indifference, but it’s a film that doesn’t look for villains or blame, although it quietly imparts information, suggesting, for example, in ways that would get through to a local audience, the factors that have contributed to the spread of aids .
the film lacks good elements of storytelling, i. e. the backstory, the meaning, the context of what went before, that would inform this situation. as a character, yesterday seems to have no history to inform her current pathetic situation. at no point in the film does she talk about her parents, friends or relatives, even when she discovers her hiv status. at worst, the film provides a shopping list of contemporary social issues—domestic violence, absent husbands, unfaithfulness in the context of hiv / aids, rural underdevelopment—confronting africans in our country today. none of these are fully developed. at best, it is just a caricature of south africa at 10 .
i made the mistake of watching the film pissed at 2am. i' ll have to watch it again when i' m in a better state of mind .
when
hotel rwanda
premiered at toronto 2004, some reviews criticized the film for focusing on paul and the colonel, and making little effort to
depict
the genocide as a whole. but director terry george and writer keir pearson have made exactly the correct decision. a film cannot be about a million murders, but it can be about how a few people respond. paul, as it happens, is a real person, and col. oliver is based on one, and
hotel rwanda
is about what they really did. the story took shape after pearson visited rwanda and heard of a group of people who were saved from massacre .
even if you' re firing on all cylinders, there' s a point about 3 / 4 of the way through the film where everybody - everybody - loses it on the first watch. this is not your fault; this part of the film is very confusing and not explained very clearly. i will explain it later .
yesterday' s husband, is a migrant mineworker, who refuses to accept his status or take responsibility for the plight of his wife. consequently, yesterday is left to fend for herself and her young daughter, beauty. in a bizarre twist, the husband arrives home, already showing signs of advanced aids - related illnesses. only then does he seek his wife' s forgiveness. perhaps a little detail missing: mine houses were amongst the first companies to roll out anti - retroviral drugs for their staff. at no stage, does yesterday' s husband seek such help. the subtext is that big business in south africa sends miners with aids home to die. and this is what will be sold to international audiences. furthermore, yesterday, is never counseled during her hiv testing. at no point was she informed about anti - retrovirals .
yesterday (leleti khumalo), an illiterate woman living in a remote zulu village, ekes out a living tilling the soil. so named because her father believed that things had been better in the past, yesterday' s day - to - day existence consists of a series of back - breaking chores, including walking to the nearest hospital, located several kilometers away, to find out why she has been feeling so tired lately .
hello, not so much a comment, its a query that ihope you may help me with. iam looking for a35mm print for the film yesterday! can you help? tried everywhere but seems it was not distributed inthe uk, any idea is highly appreciated. it is for acharity screening on world aids day that i am trying to organise. thankyou, hope to hear from you .
correction: march 2, 2004, tuesday an article yesterday about the academy awards referred incorrectly in some copies to the nationality of peter jackson, who was named best director for'' the lord of the rings: the return of the king.'' he is from new zealand, not australia. the article also misstated the number of times a nomination has gone to sean penn, who won the oscar this year as best actor. it is four, not three. the article also misidentified the man who was kissed by renée zellweger after she won the oscar for best supporting actress, in'' cold mountain.'' he was john carrabino, her manager, not bob weinstein, co - chairman of miramax, which made the film. correction: march 10, 2004, wednesday an article in the arts on march 1 about the academy awards ceremony referred incorrectly in some copies to the species of the fish that is looking for its son in'' finding nemo,'' which was named best animated feature. it is a clownfish, not a blowfish .
those who loved graham yesterday shouldn' t count on today. those who love him today risk being heartbroken tomorrow... suffering from recurring memory loss, graham is restricted to a... see full summary »
is a videovision entertainment production brought to you in association with the nelson mandela foundation, m - net, the national film and video foundation, distant horizon and exciting films .
it' s summer when the story opens. yesterday has had a nagging cough since after christmas and it won' t go away. she tries to see a doctor at the weekly clinic in kromdraai, but it' s…
i would also like to know more about the punched holes - how are they significant later in the film? useful explanation thanks, but my head is still resisting the knowledge .
the film depicts the effects of aids in the life of a young zulu woman who contracts hiv from her husband. although roodt' s narrative maintains its focus on the plight of one particular individual, the (for non - zulus) quirkily named yesterday represents millions of other women, men, and children who are now suffering or who have perished from the effects of hiv in that part of the world .
yesterday' s not tomorrow
has become the lowest rated daytime soap opera on television. in a last ditch effort to boost the ratings and keep the network from canceling the show, the... see full summary »
ought to be the story of the devastation wrought by the hiv virus on families amid disintegrating communities; a gripping film that must offer a glimpse of that twilight zone between courage and fear .
we’re just one month away from seeing batman v. superman, the long - awaited smackdown between the dark knight and the man of steel. but if things had turned out differently, we could have seen batman fight superman back in 2004. here’s everything we know about batman vs. superman: asylum, and how it would have been different than batman v. superman: dawn of justice .
so petersen was all set to film batman vs. superman in 2003, for a 2004 release. there was already tons of casting speculation flying around, with christian bale being rumored for batman and jude law for superman. (matt damon was also in the running for either role .) petersen gave various interviews, where he talked about how the clash between batman and superman was perfect for the post - september 11 world: “superman represents sort of everything clear and bright and noble. he represents our hopes and ideals. batman, on the other hand, represents the dark and obsessive and vengeful side. ”
please could somebody make a movie out of this book, i mean it' s brilliant and i think marguerite poland is still alive so she would be able to assist in making the film a success .
in this zulu language film from south africa, writer - director darrell james roodt takes us straight to the tragic heart of the aids epidemic. living in rooijoek, a remote village of zululand, a devoted wife and mother named yesterday khumalo (leleti khumalo) wants nothing more than the happiness of her seven - year - old daughter beauty (lihle mvelase), while her husband john (kenneth khambula) supports them from afar by working in the mines of johannesburg .
even if marred by a slow - moving second half and by sporadic incursions into melodrama, yesterday has much to recommend it. for starters, director - screenwriter darrell roodt and cinematographer michael brierley make sure we are transported from our movie seats to zululand, as brierley' s lenses beautifully capture the region' s magnificent vistas. surrounded by enormous expanses of dry grassland and hillsides, the area around yesterday' s small village is reminiscent in scope to the american west' s panoramic views as portrayed in the films of john ford .
'' two soldiers,'' a 40 - minute film based on the william faulkner short story about two brothers divided by war, by aaron schneider and andrew sacks, won the oscar for best live - action short film. and'' harvie krumpet,'' a claymation movie by the australian director adam elliot, won for best animated short. it is about a polish - born man cursed by bad luck .
so the idea of batman going up against superman, on the big screen, has been around for nearly 15 years. but the biggest challenge in this concept has always been finding a reason for batman and superman to fight that actually makes some sense. how you answer that question depends on how you see both of those heroes: the 2004 movie answers it by turning batman into a vengeful killer, who can only keep from murdering people by hanging up his cowl, and superman into batman’s conscience. by contrast, the new film plays on the fact that superman actually did murder general zod, and he inadvertently trashed a huge chunk of his own city .
not really sure what this is. i' ll try to read this when i am not so tired and write some feedback. i really loved the primer universe book. is any of this based on the book or just personal speculation? the whole hidden clue thing makes me wonder if any other films are similar to this effort by the film maker. too bad he only made one film. leaps and bounds better than the prestige .
whether as a focal plot element or an ancillary one, hiv / aids has been a relatively rare topic when it comes to academy award - nominated narrative films. besides darrell roodt' s yesterday, the most notable examples – shortlisted in any of the oscars' categories – are :
this all succeeds as riveting drama .
hotel rwanda
is not about hotel management, but about heroism and survival. rusesabagina rises to the challenge. the film works not because the screen is filled with meaningless special effects, formless action and vast digital armies, but because cheadle, nolte and the filmmakers are interested in how two men choose to function in an impossible situation. because we sympathize with these men, we are moved by the film .
and the other huge difference is that batman v. superman is clearly aimed at jumpstarting a whole dc comics movie universe, with lots of potential to follow ben affleck’s batman and his supporting cast alongside wonder woman and the rest of the justice league. by contrast, it’s hard to imagine just how batman vs. superman, back in 2004, could have led to much of anything, since it features a washed - up batman, and a somewhat burned - out superman as well .
abe waited six and a half hours (in the film the figure is repeatedly stated as
six hours
). at the correct time, he climbed out of the box just after it was activated - at 08: 45 monday .
when yesterday discovers she has contracted hiv from her husband, john (kenneth kambule), a miner working in johannesburg, she travels to the big city to tell him. at first, john violently refuses to accept the truth, but some time later he shows up at the zulu village, considerably weakened .
it' s up to yesterday to care for john, for their young daughter, beauty (lihle mvelase), and for herself. her health may be failing, but she makes up her mind not to succumb to the disease until her daughter starts going to school to get the education she herself never had .
backstage ms. zellweger was asked whether female roles were becoming more gritty, with the transformation of ms. theron for'' monster.'' like ms. theron in that film, ms. zellweger has put on many pounds for some of her roles .
yesterday becomes a modern remake of the stereotypic african woman as a collector of wood, bearer of children and beast of burden. producer anant singh and the gang forlornly fail to capture the lot of an ordinary poor african woman. yes, this might be their lot, but their lot is also much much more. the one - dimensionality of
hi! i' m trying to reach darrell roodt in order to invite him to venezuela, (december 12 to 18, 2008) on behalf of africala the first african film festival in latin america. i would very much appreciate if you could send him this invitation .
“‘yesterday’ tells ‘a simple story, ’ says singh, ‘but it is stronger for its simplicity. ’ it’s simple not because it is simplified (its emotional complexity runs deep) but because by containing not a single unnecessary shot, word or character, it achieves a kind of purity and universality, like ‘bicycle thief’ or ‘salaam bombay’ or ‘pixote.' ”
from the stage, ms. coppola thanked her large family and the filmmakers who inspired her and noted:'' every writer needs a muse. mine was bill murray,'' who was nominated for best actor for his potrayal of a lonely american actor in the film .
as most people may know shades is one of her best books and i had to read it in grade 12 as a set book. it' s a pity that a film hasn' t been made of this book because i' m 100% sure that it would win an award .
'' finding nemo,'' the disney film made by pixar about a father fish trying to find his son, won for best animated feature. in january pixar broke off negotiations to renew its alliance with the walt disney company, which has produced blockbusters and critically acclaimed computer - animated movies .
healthcare is a human right. 6, 000 miles away and a world apart from america' s insular healthcare debate, we can find solidarity with women in the desert pans of inland south africa. yesterday has fallen victim to illness, in the most gruesome of ways, and is met with total apathy. there' s no institution or infrastructure or anything to protect her or any of the others she interacts with in need of job security or even basic hygiene and dignity. for the first half of the film, i really felt invested. the cinematography is really fantastic, and i found the tone and editing to be quite excellent. lelti khumalo is fantastic. the direction was subtle and…
take what you' ve read in the newspaper about hiv, plus one of those sponsor a child infomercials. now sketch out a quick screenplay. ok, done? well, you' ve just written yesterday. i hear this was done partly as an educational film, and it shows; this is one of those films that means well, but ultimately gets the nod for being
important
rather than preferable markers like being
good
. the weird exception is a ten minute sequence just before the 1 hour mark, which are so markedly better than anything else that one wonders who was actually behind the camera that day (perhaps the day the credited director was off filming dracula 3000) ?
the new line cinema film was not nominated in any acting categories but won the best - director award for the bespectacled peter jackson, his shirt half - tucked and his necktie at half - mast. he told the audience:'' you' re giving us an overwhelming night. thank you.''
there were few other surprises in the evening. sofia coppola, the 32 - year - old daughter of francis ford coppola, the famed'' godfather'' director, won the oscar for best original screenplay for her delicate film about two lonely souls who meet in tokyo,'' lost in translation.''
i don' t know what you mean by
prevailing theory
, but it' s pretty clear to me that by the end of the film, the shotgun / lauren / granger situation is totally resolved... leaving abe and aaron with a different and much bigger set of problems, which cannot be resolved using time travel .
new line cinema, one of hollywood' s youngest studios, made the ambitious trilogy for a combined cost of more than $ 350 million. founded in 1967, the studio that once made its name on pulp horror films finally achieved the prestige of its first best picture oscar, a sign of its maturity in the film - making community .
aaron and abe confront one another and explain everything that has happened. this is the most difficult sequence in the film to follow, partly because of the complexity of the plot but mainly because, due to the lack of cgi, it was impossible to put more than one aaron on the screen at the same time. the two major discussion points are :
the best account of the rise and fall of batman vs. superman: asylum comes from david hughes’ indispensible book tales from development hell: the greatest movies never made. and luckily, hughes’ chapter on this film (along with darren aronofsky’s batman: year one and j. j. abrams’ superman: flyby script) is actually online, as an excerpt at movieline .
“the clinic is hopelessly understaffed, and it is only after several long trips, and an act of kindness, that she sees a doctor, and discovers that she is hiv - positive. yesterday keeps the diagnosis a secret for as long as she can, although she knows that she must tell her husband, and she knows that the women who gather around the water pump to gossip will eventually find out. her thoughts are focused on one thing: her daughter’s future .
thanks for the explanation of primer - really useful. i felt so stupid watching this film. i couldn' t follow all of the subtle plot lines at all. just vague ideas as to what was going on. so it' s nice to have it laid out like this, assuming it' s all correct of course! i don' t want to know if it' s not though! reading some of the comments here blows my mind though. this is just a made - up story someone wrote and turned into a film... .. for fun. it' s extremely doubtful that they discovered time travel in the process and that their
theory
holds any water, so i just don' t understand why people even try to rip it apart, find flaws in it, expand on it. what' s the point? just enjoy the movie, doin' t suck all the fun out of it. and yes i know some people are just discussing what was in the film - maker' s mind and that' s completely separate - nowt wrong with that .
yesterday' s not tomorrow
has become the lowest rated daytime soap opera on television. in a last ditch effort to boost the ratings and keep the network from canceling the show, the producers hire eli fein, whose acting career consists only of the wildly popular spotless detergent commercials. this rating stunt sets off a hilarious chain reaction behind the scenes that makes the soap' s melodramatic plot line pale in comparison! can the show survive even long enough to tape eli' s debut episode? tune in and find out !
this is great! but... .. the explanation says -
they put granger to bed at abe' s house; aaron cannot approach him with (out) actually somehow knocking him unconscious .
- however, in the film, both narrator aaron and aaron three suggest that it is abe' s proximity that causes granger' s unconsiousness. why would being close to abe cause granger' s unconsiousness ?
i enjoyed the film, but i could not buy into the fact that either character' s main concern was to go back in time to manipulate the stock market and basically steal money in that way. these guys created a time machine, they' re geniuses. both characters develpment indicated that their primary concern would be to continue research related solely to the time machine and its effects. they wouldn' t be interested in punching someone in the face or stealing money, that part just didn' t fit, and really didn' t add anything to the film. and for a couple of geniuses, go figure, they invite an ex - boyfriend to the party for no reason whatsoever, out of the blue. are these guys high school dropouts? yeah, sounds like it to me. carruth could have easily found a more realistic scenario for the emergency travel back circumstances .
in a village where there' s no electricity, water, or any types of public services, a young woman called yesterday lives her life next to her seven - year - old daughter called beauty, and prays everyday for a great future for her beloved daughter. her husband has left the village and works underground in the mines in johannesburg. with almost no money, but armed with hope and stoicism, the woman has only one dream: to see her daughter in school, something she was never given a chance. it is hard not no get touched or even appalled by this movie. but what is more important is what we learn by the end of the movie: that hope, determination and love have a much better effect on people' s lives than rage, ignorance and denial. yesterday is a young woman who accepts her faith but refuses to allow it to control her life. perhaps the best way to describe this remarkable movie is through the following four words :
live at all costs !
even if that means defying the odds and standing up to everyone else. for more african movie reviews go to: urltoken
this is a problem, and a critical turning point in the film. there are two aarons at this point (one at the hotel), and, due to aaron' s clumsiness, two of his cell phones (one at the hotel). if the phone in aaron' s hand is ringing then, so aaron and abe reason, the phone in the hotel cannot be ringing. symmetry is broken and history has changed. history can be changed .
to date, nowhere has the aids pandemic been felt more strongly than in sub - saharan africa, home to approximately 16 percent of the world' s population and 70 percent of the planet' s estimated 35 million aids cases. in the past thirty years, more than 20 million sub - saharan africans have died from complications of the disease. [ 1 ] even today, drug cocktails that are relatively accessible in other parts of the globe are still beyond the means of the vast majority of africans. writer - director darrell roodt' s south african drama yesterday is set in this catastrophic scenario .
you go into a shyamalan film waiting for the other shoe to drop. if the plot seems straightforward and easy to understand, hold onto your hat because two - thirds of the way through the thing, something you never saw coming is going to emerge from the shadows, hitting you over the head with how clever it is. it’s the movie equivalent of click bait: you fall for it hard the first time around, but every subsequent iteration leaves you queasy and irritated .
he deals with a murderous hutu general, for example, not as an enemy or an outlaw, but as a longtime client who knows that the value of a good cigar cannot be measured in cash. paul has trained powerful people in kigali to consider the hotel des milles collines an oasis of sophistication and decorum, and now he pretends that is still the case. it isn' t, but it works as a strategy because it cues a different kind of behavior; a man who has yesterday directed a mass murder might today want to show that he knows how to behave appropriately in the hotel lobby .
if i may jump ahead in the film slightly, the basketball scene (which takes place sometime in the middle of monday) is also important. this scene further establishes that it was aaron who originally invited will, rachel' s ex - boyfriend' s cousin, to the party - and that it was aaron who suggested that will should bring rachel' s ex - boyfriend with him. in other words, whatever originally happened at the party was indirectly aaron' s fault .
at this point, the narrator, hooded aaron, reminds us that he, of course, does not come from a timeline where everything worked out perfectly. in fact, he was never originally at the party. he has no idea how long it will take for aaron three to
reverse - engineer a perfect moment
. from what we see in the film, though, for abe two and aaron three, it appears to work first time. the jealous ex is arrested and jailed. the end .
so which box did abe use to come back in time? logically, abe must have used failsafe box c, since failsafe box a contained hooded aaron and failsafe box b contained aaron three. how did that happen? aaron must have swapped failsafe box a and failsafe box c. the box that abe believed was failsafe box a (anchored 05: 00 monday) was actually failsafe box c (anchored 05: 30 monday). this is not seen or even alluded to in the film, but it is necessary to resolve this plot hole .
the first commercial zulu feature from south africa was a mixed bag. the story follows yesterday and her husband, and their little daughter beauty and tackles the issue of aids and lack of awareness in the rural zulu villages. lets see the positives first, the cinematography is terrific, of course aided by the landscapes around the village. the extensive grasslands and sprawling mountains make for an amazing setting. and the people are well shot too, no grudges there. the ideas are also good, the story being that of a typical village type and not overly melodramatic, maintaining a simplistic lookout. the relationships between characters are well explored. my complaints are greater though, i felt the movie lacked sincerity. it is…
@ sam. well, i say prevailing theory because i felt it was seemingly obvious to most people that by the end of the film it becomes clear that the entire string of events are related in a non - linear causal format. the very new yet still somehow mysteriously broken refrigerator in aaron' s kitchen at the beginning of the film, (likely the result of a previous temporal generation of either abe or aaron using the copper tubing), abe' s initial introduction of the machine' s function to a very impatient aaron from an unknown and apparently relatively distant future, (he is impatient because this is his umpteenth time experiencing it), the
leaks
in the boxes, (likely the result of a future abe tinkering with the boxes), granger' s inexplicable appearance, (likely the result of a desperate future abe sending him back to alert his past self to the degree in which things have spiraled out of control), and finally the appearance of rachel' s boyfriend at the party, who as we all now know was and always had been invited by an aaron from the future. nothing is resolved, everything has simply been reset to its starting position. feedback loop .
everyone seems to keep saying that aaron was bleeding out of his ear from extended exposure to the boxes. evidence suggests that this is not the cause. the evidence, aside from no one else bleeding from any other place, is that it is the ear he always has his earpiece in. given the use of the earpiece as the main indication of which aaron we are seeing throughout the film, there must be more to it than it simply being an effect of exposure to the machine. i find it more likely that it could simply be from his overuse of the earpiece. it would be a pointless coincidence otherwise. am i right ?
haha, that is awesome. do you have a url for that interview? the remark about crushed ice at the start of the film is more about establishing scenery. we see some of the actually rather dull details of aaron' s family life, his daughter (
she needs a bath
). later on we see the cereal he eats for breakfast (always), and supermarket shopping, and filling up at the gas station. the whole movie is set against this incredibly low - key, pedestrian suburban backdrop. the most interesting thing in aaron' s life is a crushed ice machine! you can see why the time machines would drop a bombshell on that .
@ sam that' s quite alright sam, we don' t have to agree. that' s what makes the film so great, it' s open to endless interpretation. however, the refrigerator issue is difficult to ignore. you don' t find it at all odd that aaron' s brand new refrigerator, (we know it' s new because it has a bow on it), is malfunctioning, malfunctioning by creating dirty ice, that aaron and abe later remove the copper tubing from abe' s (not aaron' s broken) refrigerator later in the movie, and dirty ice is sometimes caused by faulty or missing copper tubing that connects the water supply line to refrigerators? i understand that it initially seems far - fetched, seeing as the opening scene takes place 3 months before the
first
machine is built. but what we are ignoring is that at the very end of the film, aaron is building a much larger box, one the size of an entire room. so we now have a giant box being created in march, (perhaps even one that an individual could conceivably exit from long before the internal structure has been fully built so long as all of its doors have been closed the entire time leading up to someone going in and using it to build the internal structure), a broken refrigerator and an unknown number of aarons and abes roaming the earth. none of this is temporally connected ?
other sorts of paradoxes are not really consequential, in light of whoever has temporal supremacy. but it really just begs the question of what exactly occurs when someone emerging in the past subsequently within a timeline in which someone has already emerged from that same machine. such a person has decided to flip back instead and in spite of the original occupant, emerging
this time
in lieu of them. it seems like they should both experience the same timeline, but the person who returns subsequent to the original occupant must be experiencing an alternative one. this is illustrated in the film, when it appears that two oscillatory timelines occur simultaneously, both originating and terminating co - dependently. interactions between these two timelines may cause conflicts which will engender consequences that become
permanent
outside the loop. this way, each time an emergence occurs, alterations will appear and conflicts will ultimately influence the timeline until there are alternate possible outcomes, ad infinitum. (only recursively conflicting events will cause paradoxes for the occupants .) however, in one way or another, there will be a point at which none of the possible occupants enter the machine, therefore belaying the subsequent emergence of an occupant and establishment of his
personal
alternative timeline. in this event, the loop will become closed, and any subjects which had become potential occupants might now be only possibilities. does this then mean that logistically, in such a scenario it is the occupant who emerges and prevents anyone from entering the machine at point b has the supremacy and successfully establishes a future timeline? i would think so. as in the film, this causes an additional copy of the original occupant .
enjoyable article. i don' t agree on every point, but it did open up a bunch of ideas to me. it never occurred to me to think about the connection of the
noises in the attic .
if not for that, i wouldn' t buy the idea that it' s aaron2 or aaron3 in the original bench scene. but that for me is a weakness of the film - i find it hard to buy that aaronprime could be locked in an attic for four days. i have a question on a point i haven' t heard anyone else mention - when the granger incident takes place, i think it' s pretty clear there are two people who get out of granger' s car. they are both out of focus so it' s hard to see them, but one of them looks like it could easily be another aaron. this other person never seems to get mentioned or referred to by anyone. anyone have any ideas ?
i appreciate the author' s input on this film. it stimulated a lot of interesting reads. given the
reality
of the movie, what would happen if you put a running time machine inside of a another time machine then turn that machine on? from what i can tell, you can only travel back in time to the point where the machine was turn on. that' s like an anchor point. when you turn the machine off, you are in essence opening up a door through time. however, it seems you must sit in the time machine for the length of time the time machine was on. you have to experience that time (in essence, you gain that time as part of the time travel). but i was thinking if there was a way to compound the length of time you traveled through, and decrease the amount of time you spend in the box by sitting inside 2 time machines. i know this is all fiction, but it' s neat to think about .
the question of granger' s lost consciousness in the presence of abe (does abe lose consciousness, too ?), interests me. i think i might have an alternative explanation. maybe. at one point in the film abe and aaron are discussing shutting off the box that granger is
in .
they make it clear they don' t know what would happen, and decide it isn' t worth the risk. is it possible that granger, distraught after his daughter' s death turns off a box that abe is
in
before entering it? this might result in an entanglement between the two. there is much quantum woo about
consciousness
so... of course, when abe got into the box it hadn' t been opened yet or the power would have been off, which means that granger entered the box from his timeline from another timeline. this seems to imply that another one of their working hypotheses is broken. still, it' s all a hypothesis till the experiment is done. possibly granger, not altogether intentionally, did the experiment .
@ teddy: the watch runs forward because it is still subjectively experiencing time progressing forward. what was odd that they noticed was the amount of time that the watch had subjectively experienced and the actual time that had passed from outside the box. this indicated that the watch was experiencing twice the amount of time because its arrow of time was no longer linear but parabolically shaped. therefore it was making forward and backward trips which resulted in a doubling of the minutes it had experienced subjectively. the only flaw the film has from this standpoint then is that aaron and abe would have had to subjectively experience 12 hours in the box to travel back 6. @ bobber: no. what you just described is essentially what aaron did to travel back farther than abe. he folded up the failsafe box and took it back with him into his box. he then opened the failsafe that had been running the entire time within the first box and traveled back in it to an earlier point. what would happen in the scenario you presented is that you would wind up deeper in the past, not farther in the future.
yesterday is a 2004 south african movie written and directed by darrell roodt . it was nominated for the best foreign language film category at the 77th academy awards . it also won best sound and best editing at the inaugural edition of the africa movie academy awards . the film tells a story of a young mother , yesterday ( leleti khumalo ) , who discovers she has aids . her husband , a migrant mine laborer , rejected her despite being the one that infected her . her ambition becomes to live long enough to see her daughter , beauty , go to school . this film is the first commercial feature-length production in zulu . 
yesterday is a 2004 south african movie written and directed by darrell roodt. it was nominated for the best foreign language film category at the 77th academy awards. it also won best sound and best editing at the inaugural edition of the africa movie academy awards. the film tells a story of a young mother, yesterday (leleti khumalo), who discovers she has aids. her husband, a migrant mine laborer, rejected her despite being the one that infected her. her ambition becomes to live long enough to see her daughter, beauty, go to school. this film is the first commercial feature-length production in zulu.
yesterday is a 2004 south african movie written and directed by darrell roodt. it was nominated for the best foreign language film category at the 77th academy awards. it also won best sound and best editing at the inaugural edition of the africa movie academy awards. the film tells a story of a young mother, yesterday (leleti khumalo), who discovers she has aids. her husband, a migrant mine laborer, rejected her despite being the one that infected her. her ambition becomes to live long enough to see her daughter, beauty, go to school. this film is the first commercial feature-length production in zulu.