Review of 12 Years a Slave (2013) by Joanna B — 05 Jul 2015

A harrowingly candid look at the pre-Civil war south, 12 Years a Slave is a profoundly evocative piece that meticulously depicts the brutal evils of slavery. English director Steve McQueen eloquently does justice to the source material of Solomon Northup's 1853 memoirs and his shrewd accounts of American's most vicious chapter.

Hoodwinked by two hustlers into leaving his New York home for a short term violinist job, middle-class Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is drugged and his paper proof of his free man status are stolen. Chained in a dank cellar and pleas for proper identification denied, his captors brand him a Georgia runaway, and proceed with the demeaning indignities that title entails.

Sold into slavery and transported to Louisiana, Solomon begins a life of basic survival. Unable to disclose the truth of his education or literacy without risking further persecution, Northup steels himself by assuming the imposed slave name of Platt and endures his hardship by forging genuine human connections.

The screenplay is skimmed down to Northup's experiences on two plantations; the first with a marginally kindly owner William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), who admires his innovations and recognises his musical talents, protecting him from the ire of a venal overseer (Paul Dano).

The second (accounting for over a decade of his enslavement) under volatile wrath of a particularly vicious drunkard, Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender). "Distinguished for his faculty of subduing the spirit of the slave" whose attention frequently and unwarrantedly wanders to an industrious young worker Patsey (Lupita Nyong'o), enraged his sadistic jealous wife (Sarah Paulson) regularly.

While fellow slaves weep inconsolably or beg for the strength to commit suicide, Northup never gives in to hopelessness and is resolute that no matter how long it takes he will to return to his wife and children.

A story of racism lived and survived, McQueen mesmerizingly plunges viewers into disturbingly vivid subject matter of state-sanctioned degradation with some graphically bold filmmaking choices. One scene that is particularly penetrating sees Northup dangling from a noose, one foot desperately scraping the ground as fellow slaves fain indifference and continue to work around him as noon becomes nigh.

A character who is both an observer and participant in his own nightmare, Northup's complexities where masterfully expressed through Ejiofor, a dignified presence that is bound for Oscar contention while Nyong'o is a remarkable newcomer.

There are some minor directorial miscalculations, including the somewhat jarring casting casting of Brad Pitt and Dano as well as the somewhat artifice opposing stylisation of Northup's two lives above and below the Mason-Dixon but in the scheme, these are easily overlooked.

The Verdict: Claimed by some that with its marginally British cast and crew to not to be "American" enough, something about this movies takes you into Northup's cotton-picking hell, making you recoil at each movement of the cane whilst reminding us that behind one person's tale there are millions more untold that deserve the same treatment; an artful truth American directors are oft too close to capture without overt sentimentality.

Published : The Queanbeyan Age.

Date of Publication : 17/01/2014.