Your children will soon enough be forgotten......

Rating: 10/10 (16 January 2014)

Solomon Northup lives as a free man in New York with his wife and two children, earning a living as a violinist.
On what he believes will be an out of town music shoe, he is drugged and sold into slavery under the name Platt. He decides that co-operation is the best way to survive.
He sees few others in the same situation as him, but slowly he is separated from those with who he has built support. This process continues over his life as a slave, as he is at the mercy of whoever his master at the time and his master's associates who work on their own priorities.
But he finds that co-operation generally gets one nowhere and sometimes can get one into further trouble due to jealousy.....
Its a hat trick for McQueen as he has crafted another near perfect film, and has gotten some career best performances from many involved, especially Ejiofor, who is wonderful as Soloman.
The film follows the three act rule of thumb, but when watching this, you cannot help but think that its a film of two halves. The first part the incarceration, and coming to terms, but having a fair owner, played brilliantly by Cumberbatch.
The second part is almost the desperation part of the story, with Soloman becoming desperate, and coming face to face with pure evil, turning his life as a slave into something else. Fassbender is wonderful here, oozing pure menace i to every act he does, whether its dancing, or just sitting there relaxing.
Cinematography is wonderful, and some drawn out scenes, like Soloman hanging, are beautifully sinister.
If there is a better film released this year, film-goers are in for a treat.
A masterpiece on every level.