For no apparent reason it has taken me 3 years to get around to watching this film. I wish I had waited 3 years more. After reading about all the acclaim this film received as an "art film" I cannot help but wonder if I had just finished watching the same movie.More so, I am amazed that none of the critics that reviewed this film could just have said that in fact it was a really badly written movie to which a single person might be able to memorize all the lines of the entire script. There is nothing memorable about this film except for the consistent bleakness from start to the literally downward spiraling end. You don't need to be an intellectual to understand obsession, or the need to dominate and hurt without cause. We have all crossed paths with angry and regretful people. Yet as a viewer it is hard to understand why no effort was made to project this struggle with more credit to the intelligence of the viewer. I hate that this film falls in the gay and lesbian genre. It is more about violence and bigotry than homosexuality. I can't help feeling like this film was written somewhere between the opening of a cheap bottle of whiskey, someone's last fifty rand and passing out on the floor.

About 90 minutes into this "film" the main character, Francois (played by Deon Lotz) lures his "nephew", Christian (played by Charlie Keegan), to his hotel room under the pretense that he is too inebriated to get there on his own. Out of nowhere the uncle lunges onto his nephew like a lion taking down an antelope. Then Francois, sitting on his nephew's chest, pinning his arms down with his knees, proceeds to pound his face like a sledge hammer with his fist, hard enough to fracture his jaw, break his nose, and cause some level of brain concussion. "Uncle" Francois then undoes his pants and forces his nephews face into his own crotch and rapes him orally. Blood is everywhere. The nephew, by then, sufficiently injured and in full blown medical shock, is then turned over onto his stomach, pants are pulled down, and the uncle proceeds to rape him anally while strangling him. Just in case this isn't horrifying enough for you, the camera angle is then changed to an overhead shot so that you can see the victims backside as he's being brutalized. His injuries from this attack, both exterior and interior, physical and mental, leave him comatose and unable to move even after he is no longer being physically restrained. This film is the "rape" equivalence of a snuff film. Its only real purpose is to titillate at the basest, and most disgusting, reptilian level. The makers of this crap would have you believe that what happened in that hotel room was the result of repressed homosexuality. Again, just to reiterate, he brutally beat and brutally raped his "nephew". Repressed homosexuality may lead to alcoholism, drug addiction, a secret life of clandestine sex, but it does not lead to sadistic sexual sadism and rape. Either make a film about a repressed homosexual, or make one about a rapist. But do not conflate the two. One is a tortured soul. The other tortures victims. It is unbelievable to read the "10's" here that congratulate this filmmaker on his "penetrating look into the torment of sexual repression". What this actually is, is a glimpse into the soulless evil of sadistic sexual psychopath. Think, Boston Strangler, John Wayne Gacy, Ted Bundy. Francois, in this film, is not Dennis Quaid in "Far From Heaven". He is a brutal criminal. And about half an hour before the brutal rape you'll discover that he's a racist and a homophobe as well when he travels to the South African plains to an isolated ranch house where he stands around drinking with other racist/homophobes until they get drunk enough to dull their mutual disgust for one another enough so that they can have gross-out sex with each other while watching porn. Those two wonderful scenes take up about five minutes of screen time. The other hour and thirty- two minutes is composed of Francois thinking, thinking, thinking. Looking, thinking, looking. Thinking, looking, thinking. Staring, looking, thinking, looking, staring. The only mercy, which you are as of yet unaware, is that there is no raping going on. There is very little dialog. And what there is, is banal. Then the gross-out sex in the ranch house with a bunch of sweaty fat old men. Then the brutal, and truly horrifying, rape; and that's about it. This is a sick, sick, movie. Not because it shows something horrible that is difficult to watch, or shouldn't be explored, but because it attempts to explain a crime, or gain sympathy for a criminal, by portraying that criminal as a victim of a repressive society, and his crime as the byproduct of that repression. THAT, is criminal. Yes, we should repress assault, battery, and rape, as much as is humanly possible. Those are crimes. Prosecute, and then off to prison you go for a possible twenty-five years to life. Do not pass go. Do not collect $200.00. And do not make a stupid movie surrounding the crime.Oh, yeah. The ending (as if this couldn't get any worse). Francois is out alone at a restaurant for lunch and sees a happy gay couple across the dining room sharing romantic glances with one another. He looks wistfully (the looking, staring, thinking - again) as if to imply, "if only I could be "out" I wouldn't have to brutally beat and rape my nephew." Hey idiot boy, writer/director Robert Hermanus, sexual battery, assault, and rape, are not the by products of sexual repression. That you are confused about this is - interesting. I don't know what is more disturbing, this film, or that there are some out there who think that this garbage is an insight into repression. This film panders to a gay audience (I am one), in a truly egregious, creepy, and insulting, way. No thanks.It is of no importance whatsoever that Deon Lotz gives a good performance of - someone... It's in the wrong film.

Oliver Hermanus wonderfully crafted "Beauty" was South Africa's submission to the Academy Awards as well as 2011 Un Certain Regard Cannes Film Festival Nominee and a Cannes award winner. This is a tale of repressed turmoil that slowly creep ups to the viewer. A very capable Deon Lotz plays François in an excellent performance filled with subtle anger, rage, jealousy and obsession. These feeling progressively take their toll on the unsuspecting Christian, brilliantly portrayed by Charlie Keegan with a devastating innocence and magnetic charm that will keep audiences disturbed long after experiencing this film. Family man Francois van Heerden is a haven of many secrets. Secrets that deteriorate as well as rot the insides. In his endurance of life's test and family matters, François is able to keep an expected straight face in his daily dealings as he slowly asphyxiates for attention from his daughter's mate Christian. Christian, on the other hand, not only regards Francois as an elderly figure worthy of respect due to friendship ties with his father but refers to him as "uncle", an adoptive role soon to be tested by an ever raging need to relate in highly improbable ways unbeknown to an oblivious Christian . However, we get the sense that Christian honestly looked up to Francois as an additional father figure source. The platonic dealings slowly eats away at Francois as he repeatedly insists Christian refer to him by his name in order to detract from the connecting familiar upbringing which seems to awkwardly remind Francois to hold back on his planned intentions. Effective scheming leads to the an extremely troubling conclusion based on a number of deliberate choices and sequential actions meant to pander to the vile objectives to be executed. Upon the enforcement of his plans, François realizes the results are now irreversible. The damage is done and permanent. The post mutilating events leads to reparations that will ultimately render Francois unrepentant and numb to an uneven arrangement. The brilliance of this story falls within the mix bag of emotions this film emits. The film is beautifully haunting as it unfolds, yet extremely ugly. "Beauty" is a cinematic gem worthy of attention because it will illicit a variety of strong and deep long lasting reactions. It will encourage dialogue with other viewers immediately after watching regarding its many unanswered questions of what could have been.

There seems to be a misapprehension about this movie and is key to understanding it. Francois is not in fact a blood uncle. In the opening wedding scene Christian says something ( I can't remember his actual words) which establish that. The opening scene shows Francois transfixed by a vision of a young man known to him last as a boy before the two families lost touch. If he were a REAL uncle, how likely is it that he doesn't already know what he looks like? This changes the whole dynamic of the movie and makes his actions at the later beach scene easier to understand. This movie is very good, but not an easy watch, but I feel that viewers need to know the above, (a point which even a few commercial reviewers got wrong) in order to appreciate its merits.