12 Years A Slave
Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael K. Williams, Michael Fassbender
Director: Steve McQueen
Who would have thought it would take an English director to deliver the definitive film on slavery. Director Steve McQueen helms a film that is gripping, painful and at points extremely hard to watch.
This is the first film I have seen that mid screening a critic got out of his seat told the person next to me “I can’t watch this anymore” and left the room for a good fifteen minutes to pull himself together. Not since Passion of the Christ has a film been shown on screen that is so unrelenting it challenges the viewers preconceived notions on the material.
Of primary note is that this is based on a true story. Chiwetel Ejiofor stars in what is sure to be an academy nominated role as Solomon Northrup a free man from upstate New York who goes out on the town with his employers only to wake up in shackles in a dark room sold into slavery under an assumed name.
Solomon learns quickly the difference between men who have tasted freedom and those born and raised in slavery, while he longs to get back to his free life, they just don’t have any fight in them. Solomon lived a comfortable life with a wife and two children as well as prominence within the community, to see it taken away and watch him treated as a piece of property is hard to see. To see a slave who just had her two kids be taken from her and be told she will quickly forget about them as though they are not human is harder to see. Yet the hardest to see are the beatings the violent brutality of a whipping a decanter to the face the mental and verbal degradation, the aftermath of open wounds and sores. To see the culmination of this is not the easiest to watch for the faint of heart.
First time actor Lupita Nyong’o is remarkable as Patsey the focal point of Mistress Epps (Sara Paulson) jealous rage, Every chance Mistress Epps gets to take out her anger on Patsey she does. Her deep seated anger over Patsey being the focal point of her life due to her husband Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender) continuous attention given to her. Patsey’s reward for being able to pick vast amount of cotton as well as not fighting off Epps unwanted advances and rape.
Fassbender is vile and despicable as Epps, a man who uses his religion as an excuse for his deplorable behavior he is as loathsome an individual as one might come across and Fassbender should get nominated for a supporting actor. It takes a true talent to deliver a person so hated on the screen.
While the supporting cast is outstanding Chiwetel Ejiofors turn as Solomon is the crowning achievement His ability to convey a decade’s worth of pain in the single look of an eye is worthy of an Oscar nomination at the minimum.
This is a film with solid performances throughout, McQueen delivers a heartbreaking and powerful film that must be seen.
Some might think that me liking this film is strictly white guilt, this couldn’t be further from the truth. If anything this film should be a reminder to the black community of what their ancestors went through and to utilize history as an excuse is embarrassing, Its almost tragic that from the horrible circumstances that Solomon experienced, if he lived in this day and age his biggest fear would be Black on Black crime and a degradation of the family structure that he strived for over a decade to get back to.
Grade – 96
