I'll start with a short (very short) summary of the movie:
After having an affair with a student, a Cape Town professor moves to the Eastern Cape, where he gets caught up in a mess of post-apartheid politics.
This movie made me cry. It has a very isolated feeling throughout, and while I don't regret watching it, I found it very sad/depressing.
I may be in the minority here, but I found David Lurie to be a sympathetic character. He seemed lonely and sad (not sad as in unhappy, but sad as in clueless/pathetic) and I really did not seem him as being a predator. The girl wasn't some high school girl. I don't feel like she was exploited, but certainly professional boundaries were crossed and that is wrong. I thought the girl was stupid because she didn't say what she wanted, she went to lunch with him, she let him come in her house, she willingly went to his house...how is she a victim of anything? Maybe she had emotional issues, who knows? But I did not see her as a victim and I did not see Lurie as anything more than a very lonely and maybe socially backward man looking for a connection.
The setting of the film I found frightening for reasons I can't really articulate. Africa scares me. Because it seems even more uncivilized than we are here. The civil wars, the treatment of women and children, it seems like such a dangerous place. I enjoy travel. I have been fortunate to travel to a few different countries. I have a long list of place I'd love to see in this world. Africa has never, and will never be on that list. Plus...I mean...lions. lol. Lions aside, I would be terrified to exist in a place so full of unrest and violence.
None of that has anything to do with Disgrace though. After David is let go from his job for the relationship with a student, he goes to the countryside to stay with his daughter for a while. She runs some sort of animal rescue and lives alone.
Halfway through the film, David and his daughter are out walking some of her dogs. When they arrive back at her farmhouse, there are three teenage boys messing with dogs who are being housed in kennels. When questioned, they say they need to use a phone. So the daughter takes one of the boys inside to use the phone.
But this was a trick, and the boys then rape and assault the daughter, rob her house, pour gasoline onto David's face and throw a lighted match into the bathroom they've locked him in, shoot all the dogs, and steal her car. Even knowing this is just a movie and not really happening, I was very disturbed.
The remainder of the film deals with the aftermath of the attacks, mostly with David attempting to understand the ways in which his adult daughter copes. His character definitely changes in this film from beginning to end, but I didn't really think he was such a terrible guy to begin with.
If I knew more about South Africa (which sadly I don't) I might be able to say more, as I know this movie makes some sort of statement about racial tensions in that country and maybe gender inequality as well?
All I know is that I found this film moving, difficult to watch at times, but it definitely had an emotional impact.
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