Disgrace (2008)

Directed by: Steve Jacobs | 120 minutes | drama | Actors: John Malkovich, Jessica Haines, Scott Cooper, Eriq Ebouaney, Fiona Press, Monroe Reimers, Charles Tertiens, Paula Arundell

The book “Disgrace” (Dutch translation: “In disgrace”) by South African Nobel Prize winner JM Coetzee won the Booker Prize in 1999 and was named the best non-American, English-language book of the last 25 years by The Observer in 2006. . About ten years later, the film adaptation is a fact.

John Malkovich plays David Lurie in his fifties; an intelligent but arrogant professor of literature at the University of Cape Town. He believes that beautiful women should ‘share’ their beauty with men, because they have the right to give in to their lusts. After misusing his position to get one of his students into bed, he is forced to resign. Arrogant as he is, he says he has no regrets about the whole situation and decides to visit his lesbian daughter Lucy (Jessica Haines) who lives in the South African countryside.

Once there, it soon becomes clear how big the generation gap between the two is and how difficult it is for them to communicate with each other. Not only does David understand nothing about homosexuality, but they also deal very differently with the changes that will take place in South Africa after Apartheid was abolished. When one day they are visited by three black men, Lucy is raped and David is beaten. Where he wants revenge and justice, she refuses to press charges and resigns herself – patiently – to the situation. She feels she may have to pay for everything her white ancestors ever did wrong. While the event causes David to see his action with the student from a different perspective, he is also forced to reconsider his views. Only then can he help Lucy.

Director Steve Jacobs – who previously made ‘La Spagnola’ (2001) – has made ‘Disgrace’ a penetrating film that is full of symbolism. This constantly makes you think. The atmosphere and decor are very impressive, as well as the acting. John Malkovich is phenomenal as the idiosyncratic David Lurie and Jessica Haines as his daughter Lucy leaves a fine impression on her debut.

What is clever about ‘Disgrace’ is that as a viewer you experience the same confusion as David in the story. Where you do not understand him in any way before his journey to the countryside, you are immediately on his side as soon as he comes into conflict with Lucy about the steps to be taken after the traumatic event. While she still seems like goodness itself with her dog kennel and far-reaching hospitality. Together with him you then try to look at things from a different perspective: Lucy’s.

However, that perspective remains a weak point in the story. Because despite all the terrible things that have happened between population groups; to feel personally guilty for this and to allow it to be abused goes a long way. ‘Disgrace’ has not become an easy film either because of all the things you have to fill in yourself. And where readers of the book praised the story for its fluency, that is certainly not the case in the film. The story only seems to slow down as the end approaches. Perhaps to give the viewer time to think? But think about the story as well as soon as you walk out of the cinema. It’s all too impressive for that.