Watch Beauty For Free

Nice effects though.

What begins as a feel-good-human-interest story turns into a mystery, then a tragedy, and ultimately an outrage.

The acting in this movie is really good.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

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.

1. Artsy fartsy is one thing but to waste film stock for endless minutes of people staring or having nonsense dialogue is useless.2. There was so many scenes that made no sense. It is as if the director started filming a train of thought, they broke for lunch, forgot that they were in the middle of this train of thought, and left it and moved on to filming a new train of thought.3. The rape scene was disturbing and I will give credit, was one of the best and realistic rape scenes that I have seen in a movie. That being said, I found it: (a) Unbelievable that the strong young boy, even punched etc. when he is now going to be anally violated, does not put up a further fight.(b) Where is the punishment for the rapist's actions? I understand the artsy fartsy point of telling the ending that perhaps its Christian whom is calling and demanding money as blackmail to keep quiet, but do we - after enduring so many (see above) started train of thoughts on this film to have them dropped with no explanation? 4. What was with the whole bar/drinking/throwing up scenes there for? More wasted film stock.5. What was with the cloths in the pool? With so much open ended topics, one would have thought that maybe Christian was dead in the pool, either drowned by the old fool, or he had committed suicide.Frankly, I do like a good movie and one that lets you think and not have it served up like Pablum, but this movie was actually painful to watch for all the wrong reasons.Finally, yes the old men got together to have a sex romp, so its not like the lead was repressing his gayness, he was just wanted some young handsome boy to be his bottom. Based on the men that were at the farmhouse, can you blame him for wanting something more than the old fat balding men that he had to contend with to stay on the DownLow?Mercyfully, I got to see this on NetFlix so there really was no cost but I still may ask for a refund on the prorate costs for the monthly shows I did watch and pay me a refund for this one.A TRUE TRIP DOWN RUBBISH LANE.

Beauty is a generally well-made movie about the ugly consequences of sexual repression in an intensely, violently homophobic society in South Africa (although it could just as well have been set in the United States or most other countries). The movie's few serious flaws--Deon Lotz is not believable as a gay man, even as a severely closeted and homophobic gay man; and Charlie Keegan is nowhere near the beauty the movie makes him out to be--in a way aren't really flaws at all, because those incongruities reinforce the fundamental impossibility of anything approaching health and sanity in such a perverted society. The true perverts are the homophobes, and this movie exposes them and portrays the hypocrisy, depravity and violence of their lives with great power and clarity.The characters are bilingual; the movie's dialog is about 30% English and 70% Afrikaans, often switching back and forth several times within a single multi-person conversation. That would be okay if either both languages were subtitled (the best solution) or if the English were not spoken with a pronounced South African accent--but instead they chose to subtitle ONLY the words spoken in Afrikaans.Often I found myself wondering why the subtitles suddenly stopped in the middle of a conversation only to realize too late that they were speaking English now so I was supposed to know what they were saying; then they would switch without warning back to Afrikaans and the subtitles resumed.That's a big mistake, it would have been easy to avoid, and it's unacceptably and unnecessarily distracting. When the same voice alternates between Afrikaans and Afrikaans-accented English, a non-bilingual listener can't make the instantaneous adjustments required to understand every word. It would have cost them practically nothing to subtitle the English too, but they didn't. It became slightly less a problem later in the movie just because I got used to it, but it never ceased to be a distraction. That's the main reason I deducted a few stars.

Beauty is anything but. A piece of vile homophobic crap is the nicest thing I can call this pretentious mess. Its the kind of film that reinforces stereotypes of the worst and most destructive nature. Yes, it might look real and be real, but is it truly something that needs to be seen? The unresolved aftermath of the rape scene (cinematically it is not attempted rape, it is rape) I found particularly disgusting. Someone looking for anything more than an artsy fartsy pile of pseudo-intellectual garbage will be either totally revolted or bored . Sure the racism and the repression of South Africa is real, it is well acted and the film is well crafted, but are those the only reasons to sit through this awfulness? I understand the director's political agenda and I think this is a poor way of expressing it. This is only my opinion but I'm sure most people would agree.