Painful, yet utterly rewarding...

Rating: 10/10 (20 February 2014)

Steve McQueen's masterpiece 12 years a Slave is probably the most haunting, riveting, beautiful and unflinching depictions of human rights abuses of all time. This is not an easy watch at all, as it is not what a normal movie would do, which is to entertain. It left me with an impact that went beyond anything I'd seen in years. This is truly an accomplished work of art and an astonishing piece of storytelling.
What is truly disturbing about this film is that the issue of slavery itself is not not just a thing of the 1800s; it still goes on today. Even as we speak, people are enslaved, beaten, raped, psychologically abused and forced to work under appalling conditions.
As McQueen pointed out in his Bafta speech, there are 21 million people enslaved today, and that he wishes that no other director would, 150 years from now, have to make another film like this one.
This film explores the core of human suffering, and the basic nature of humans who want to be free more than anything else. There is no worse sound than the silence of the holocaust that is slavery.
10 out of 10, if I could give it more, I would.