Disgrace, a film by Steve Jacobs, with John Malkovich, Jessica Haines

15 September 2010

Disgrace, trailer, is the second feature of filmmaker Steve Jacobs, who collaborated with his wife, Anna Maria Monticelli — who wrote the screenplay — to adapt Australian and South African author J.M. Coetzee’s 1999 novel of the same name.

Set in present day South Africa, mostly in Cape Town, and a remote farm on the Eastern Cape, Disgrace is — at times — a disturbing and confronting insight to the changing political and social dynamics of post-apartheid South Africa.

David Lurie (John Malkovich) is a middle-aged divorced white South African professor, who tutors poetry to less than enthused students at a Cape Town university. He is a self-indulgent, often blasé man, who seems to have no social life, and whose only friend is Soraya (Natalie Becker), a prostitute he sees regularly.

A chance encounter with one of his students, Melanie (Antoinette Engel), elsewhere on the campus, leads to an affair after he invites her out for a drink. The relationship however raises the ire of another student, Sidney (Antonio Fisher), and is soon brought to the attention of the university’s administrators, who duly dismiss David.

Yet it all seems like water off a duck’s back to David. Leaving Cape Town, he travels to his daughter, Lucy’s (Jessica Haines) isolated farm. He is surprised to learn she has split from her partner, another woman, and aside from Petrus (Eriq Ebouaney), a nearby neighbour, now lives alone.

After returning from a walk one afternoon David and Lucy are brutally attacked outside her house. David suffers burns after being dowsed with methylated spirits and set alight, while Lucy is raped. But it is the aftermath of the attack that leaves David especially displaced.

Petrus for instance, while concerned and sympathetic, otherwise seems little perturbed, and even Lucy, despite her ordeal, refuses to press charges even after learning who the attackers are. It seems she would much rather keep the peace than risk upsetting her neighbours.

Disgrace is a glimpse into many of the changes currently taking place in South Africa. For example we see ownership of Lucy’s farm transition from her control, to that of Petrus and his family. In a reversal of roles, Lucy ends up as his tenant, having previously been the land owner.

Disgrace is also the story of David coming to terms with, and taking responsibility for, the wrong doing he has caused. For a time he is adamant that those who attacked him and his daughter be brought to justice, despite – at first – having no interest in making amends for his transgressions.

Originally published Wednesday 15 September 2010.