A good movie

Within a week, it was already the 2nd movie picked up by Roger Ebert as one of the best of the year without me knowing it before watching this. Even though I can understand why Roger Ebert was so enthusiast, I didn’t completely share his opinion though. As usual, I didn’t really know what the movie was about beforehand (apparently, it is an adaptation of book written by J.M. Coetzee, a major South African writer) and, at first, I thought that the main character was rather pathetic. I mean, in the first scene, he has sex with his regular prostitute, a gorgeous black woman, and then he has a rather lugubrious affair with a student. Then, he gets kicked out from his university and goes to the country side to spend some time in the farm of his daugther. At this point, you would think that there was enough material for one movie, but no, it doesn’t stop here, there was also some major dramatic event making the whole thing even more intricate. While watching this, I was reminded that South Africa is a wild and dangerous country, allegedly one of the most dangerous countries in the world, with a dark history and some very deep scars. In my opinion, there was a little bit too much going on for my taste but I was intrigued by the journey made by the main character and John Malkovich gave, as usual, a very good performance. Anyway, to conclude, even though it is a rather tough watch, it is actually pretty good and it is definitely worth a look.

7/10