The movie we needed...

Rating: 10/10 (12 March 2014)

'12 Years a Slave' is a hard film to assess and watch. I think I like what it represents as a piece about Hollywood almost more than the film it's self (don't take me the wrong way. The film is excellent). I recall seeing 'Django Unchained' last year and sadly thinking that Tarantino's cartoony spaghetti western with all it's eccentricities still probably portrayed slavery more accurately than any Hollywood film had up until that point. Along comes '12 Years a Slave' less than a year later and as I watched the film I couldn't stop thinking that this was what was needed. I've come to find that the Academy Award for Best Picture has nothing to do with a film's worth but I will say that this film deserved a Best Picture award to find an even broader audience. Steve McQueen and Chiwetel Ejiofor in one feel swoop have made a film together that so brutally destroys the myth of American exceptionalism. '12 Years a Slave' is much like the much heralded 'Schindler's List' in it's blunt depiction of historical evil but McQueen has no time or respect for Spielbergian catharsis. '12 Years a Slave' is a brutal and honest.
This is not a film for the faint of heart. It is above everything else a passion play about psychical and mental torture. Our star Chiwetel Eijofor is asked to give the bravest and deepest of performances. His ability to suffer so realistically on the camera is hard to watch. We empathize with Solomon because Eijofor instills within him a great deal of intelligence and dignity. I think this is why the character and performance resonate so well with the theme of the film. Eijofor 's body takes punishment in horrendously violent scenes but it is the scenes of mental torture which are almost more angering. To see Northup being talked down to and berated as a stupid animal is horrible. McQueen and Eijofor take time to show Northup before he comes to his tragic fate. There's a great scene in the middle of the film that delves into the idea of being a slave and being a free black man. Northup is horrified to see his fellow slaves being restricted in their mental growth. Northup wants to regain the dignity a slave can never have. Eijofor's intelligence and audacity are perfect for this characterization.
McQueen is a brave storyteller. I love the fact that against this horrible backdrop is the constant use of the bible and Christianity as a justification for slavery. Michael Fassbender's Epps and even Benedict Cumberbatch's Ford both preach to their slaves as if to justify everything they do. I love this theme because it is completely against any depiction of slavery we have ever seen in a mainstream film. I don't think I've seen a film as anti-religious as '12 Years a Slave'. McQueen actually has the nerve to have a character hope that the Egyptian plaques pale in comparison to whatever happens to the plantation owners upon their judgement. This is brave. I think it's telling that this movie was made by a British director and a cast of English actors. I don't think '12 Years a Slave' could have been made in America by a major studio. The film believes mankind is inherently evil despite facades of being Christian or American. There is no justification for slavery other than a complete moral bankruptcy.
If this film were made in America by a Spielberg I imagine there would be some sort of catharsis or hope for a better tomorrow by having Soloman survive. McQueen ends the film with Soloman broken and carrying scars that will never heal. This is the only way to honestly portray slavery everything else is a romantic view of this nation's Holocaust.