Desgracia

Disgrace is based on J.M. Coetzee's prize winning novel. Its central character is a an English professor in South Africa and his relationship with a number of women including one of his students, his daughter and a lover. It's about race, sex, revenge, redemption, moral ambiguities, what is right and what is wrong; above all it's about the complex nation that is South Africa.

Having read the novel, I can say that the film is very faithful to the book. Perhaps if the movie can be faulted it is because the film adaptation is too faithful. We can clearly hear the author's voice in the movie but not the director's. It just does not resonate as it should have done considering the source material. This by no means to say Disgrace is not a good film; in fact it is a very good film, finely acted (especially by Malkovich) and well directed. But it is not a great film and one feels that if Steve Jacobs, the director had perhaps not remained so faithful to the novel, the film would have risen from the level of a very competent and faithful adaptation to a great and perhaps even a classic film.

Both J.M. Coetzee's novel and its film adaptation leave their audience wanting more answers. Disgrace is a confronting and brutal tale of life in modern South Africa. The message is clear. There are no simple solutions.

Literary academic David Lurie's admiration of Byron seems to have formed his personal morality and his professional ethics.

His amorality leads to a doomed relationship that precipitates both work and identity crises. His alienation from university colleagues and students results in a refusal to defend his reputation or his professorial position.

He is not the victim of an old fool's infatuation but the arrogance of a serial Casanova. He quotes William Blake as his sole defence, "Sooner strangle an infant in its cradle than nurse unacted desires." His retreat to his daughter's remote farm entangles their individual problems in the realities of life in the post apartheid era.

Director Steve Jacobs and screenwriter Anna Maria Monticelli continue their professional and personal partnership as co-producers. Their earlier collaboration on La spagnola in 2001 was another Australian production that is a minor gem.

John Malkovich's ability to convey complete self absorption and intense self doubt without dialogue make him an excellent choice for David. Relative newcomer Jessica Haines plays his daughter Lucy. Hers is a competent and moving performance. Eriq Ebouaney strikes the right tone in a difficult role as Petrus, the black farmer and her co-landholder.

Disgrace is an adaptation that more than does justice to the novel. Like the book, it does not sensationalise or over-dramatise this extremely difficult story. I had misgivings before the screening because the novel seemed so bleak. Lucy's compromise and David's acceptance of her decision offer such slim hope.

We are left with little doubt that this is an allegory for the issues facing modern multi-racial South Africa. Yet it is at the personal level that the film is most powerful.

Kevin Rennie Cinema Takes http://cinematakes.blogspot.com

Disgrace (2008)

Wow, what a troubled movie, and troubling. At the very very bottom, I think it's about accepting things that are horrible because you have to, but also about accepting things that you don't understand, also because you have to. That's a hard thing to do, and the lead character, a literature professor played by John Malkovich, is the kind of man who analyzes and understands with great nuance almost everything.

But things go wrong, and he is trying to help his grown lesbian daughter, who in her submissiveness all around, even to him, lets him fail through no fault of her own. The world of South Africa, where whites are bound to gradually lose their place, their land, their well being in a shift back to the original black inhabitants, is not easy to grasp, and the movie, based on J.M. Coetzee's novel, tries. Noble, frustrating, at times unconvincing, "Disgrace" is redeemed (as a movie) by the professor's seeming higher sense of values. We cling to his feelings for justice and for his daughter even as we find him personally despicable. "Disgrace" is also redeemed (as a concept) by the very strong currents of the book, dealing with what might be the most problematic issue of our times--how to get along, how to coexist and when not to, how to understand and accept and sometimes refuse to accept.

Great stuff, good movie.

John Malkovich portrays an esteemed Capetown professor who lives somewhat in his own ivory tower, has an affair with a young student and finds his idyllic life in academia and ego-gratification shattered.

He decides somewhat on a whim to visit his daughter Lucy, who runs a farm on the South African coast. She cares for several dogs and has a native worker who helps her on the farm. It is a small cohesive village and she is on the outside looking in, a veritable intruder, in more ways than one.

The story develops and foreshadows the violence which is beset upon Lucy and her father by a local disturbed boy who rapes her, along with a gang of two other young men. Her father sustains burns, but does not see what actually happens to Lucy in the other room, although the audience can infer she is being raped repeatedly.

Malkovich at first approaches her gingerly, thinking she is damaged and distraught needing to move away from the farm and her assailants. However, the opposite proves to be true. In a rather dismal scene, Lucy tells her father she must remain, that rapes like this have occurred before, and she is owing this to the people of the land, that she must remain to take on a sort of punishment.

There are psychological nuances here. People inducing sadomasochism, or enduring it for their real or presumed character flaws. It makes for a compelling story, and I'd imagine the novel by J.M. Coetzee is a great read. The film at times does not translate this subtlety, and we are left feeling annoyed with Lucy and her victimized state.

Malkovich is good here, as usual, with an affected but acceptable accent, a restrained but marked need for sexuality in his later years. He has an affair with a local veterinarian where he brings some of Lucy's unfortunate dogs to be etherized.

The scene where Malkovich plays music for a dog, the dog responds to him, wanting his love, and he brings it to the vet to be destroyed is sad and stark. "Put it out of its misery", he tells her...and we almost imagine he is speaking of his own life instead of the dogs.

Overall a worthy film, although the book is probably much clearer in intent and I am now intrigued to read the authors works regarding animals and the fragility of life. Recommended. 8/10. **Addendum: Have finished the novel and it is a must read

This austere movie based on a Booker prize winning novel be J.M.Coertzee will leave you breathless as the performances by Malkovich and his co star Jessica Haines are both very compelling.A story perhaps without a beginning or an ending and not a movie for the brainless, may suit more than one viewing to figure out all the symbolism here of post apartheid South Africa. Here we are asked how do you handle the injustices of life? aloof like Melanie, timid like Rosalind, with desperate acceptance like Lucy or with audacious dignity like David? There is a lot more to discover in this movie.The title is an enigma, where is the Disgrace? In life itself or In our inability to shape our futures with much effect? Well worth a watch but be prepared to be frustrated, angry and outraged by the displays of injustice paraded before you.