Review of Disgrace (2008) by Michael O — 20 Jul 2010
Great film and wonderful performance from Mr. John Malkcovich. We meet a monster professor who excuses his evil nature through poetry, status, and race. Though once this monster is forced to leave Cape Town, something we at first see as a noble exile, an escape from a society of those who just don't understand a mad heart, he must confront the savage world he lives in.
What could've gone awfully wrong with this story is the situation that fucks up the world as he knows it. His daughter is raped. Should this be how a seducer of young students and a man who once hailed Satan in his poetry class (with eloquence at least) learns 'the right way?' This film is too skillful and intelligent for that.
His education in literature has taught him that there is no right. That there is nothing you can ever truly learn. Though he begins to see that the definition of monstrosity is to live in an imaginary world of your own making with your own virtues and your own suffering and pleasures.
Towards the end our immoral professor accepts his country in a way he couldn't have without seeing how his own daughter accepts it with humility, painful realization, and a profound view of horror as a fact of life; though one with a nobility more in touch with nature; free from hate.
This review of Disgrace (2008) was written by Michael O on 20 Jul 2010.
Disgrace has generally received positive reviews.
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