Intolerable cruelty

Rating: 7/10 (26 January 2014)

'12 Years a Slave' hits you hard, like a powerful punch in the stomach. Director Steve McQueen shows the atrocities of the southern slave-owners without mercy. He lingers over the humiliations, the whippings, the rapes, the lynchings. There are almost no limits to the cruelty and the sadism shown.
If this wasn't based on a true story, you'd think it was exaggerated. Can a society be so cruel and relentless? Yes, because everything in this film is based on the book by Solomon Northup, an ordinary citizen in 19th century New England, who was abducted and sold as a slave in Louisiana.
The long takes and the explicit display of violence are Steve McQueen's trademarks. Where other directors would turn the camera away and suggest what's happening, McQueen shows it all. The scars, the blood, the pain. This is what made his earlier film 'Hunger' such a remarkable movie. McQueen showed IRA-fighter Bobby Sands' hunger strike in its purest, rawest form.
This approach works just as well to show the cruelty of slavery. McQueen's long takes, his close-ups and his camera angles are great to watch and give this movie an artistic quality that's missing in most Hollywood productions. Also, the soundtrack contributes wonderfully to the terrifying atmosphere of the movie. As do the sound effects in general. When Northup is locked up for the first time, the sound of his chains is almost more harrowing than the sight of his body lying on the floor.
But in spite of its many qualities, this film is essentially a very one-dimensional one. White slave-owners are sadistic (some more so than others), violent and ruthless. This is the message that McQueen keeps on repeating, in increasingly powerful scenes. Even the white women show no pity for the slaves. And the white cotton pickers, who work together with the slaves, are not to be trusted either. This is a typical good guys-bad guys film. There's nothing in between. But that's probably how it was back then.