Slavery is not yet annulled

Rating: 9/10 (18 August 2014)

12 years a slave is a film adaptation of an autobiography by Solomon Northup, a freeborn African American, who was abducted and spent 12 years in slavery, working on plantations, before being set free. This a third feature film by director Steve McQueen after his much appraised Hunger (2008) and Shame (2011). All of them feature actor Michael Fassbender, who here appears in the role of one of the meanest characters in film history, that could be best compared to Leonardo DiCaprio's portrayal of the plantation owner Calvin Candie in Tarantino's Django Unchained. Brad Pit's production company Plan B Entertainment supported the making of this film and he himself shortly appears as the person who helps Solomon to regain his freedom. Being based on a story of a firsthand experience, this film is one of the best films tackling the subject of slavery putting the cruelties of of those who have power over other people straight to our faces and bringing closer to our understanding the facts of the slaves' sufferings. The cast gives a brilliant performance, starting with Chiwetel Ejiofor in the role of Solomon, to whom an injustice has been done and is held captive as a slave on a plantation. He tries to attain some level of dignity in the given conditions, but all the things he survives during his slavery and all the things he sees that other slaves are subjected to, all the humiliation, leave him a broken men with traumas he won't be able to get over to the end of his life. Chiwetel Ejiofor very often manages to convey the character's emotions only through a face expression, almost like a silent movie actor. Michael Fassbender is also excellent in the role of the decadent cruel plantation owner Edwin Epps. He seems to be the sum of all evils in one, he is merciless, an alcoholic and an adulterer. He whips his slaves after they have spent all day picking cotton, if they have not picked the satisfactory weight, he wakes them at night and forces them to dance for his sheer amusement, but the worst of all is his relationship to Patsey (Lupita Myong'o), his favorite slave, or the queen of the fields, as he calls her. He is not an immune to the attraction to a black girl, and as his guilty conscience of being involved with, in his opinion, a lower kind of human, starts to torment him, he vents his fury by lashing her to exhaustion. This film is daring in representing Christianity as a tool for justifying slavery as depicted in the sermons read to the slaves by Epps and Master Ford (played by Benedict Cumberbatch). Although primarily a good man and a Christian, Ford does not let "sentimentality" overcome him and in his blindness he continues to abide to social settings. Paul Dano is always good playing the bad guy (since There will be Blood – 2007), in the role of the carpenter Tibeats, who is enraged by the fact that a slave can be smarter than him and who provokes Solomon's only attempt for resistance. And there is one more performance worthy of notice and that's of Alfre Woodard, playing Mistress Shaw. She portrays a former slave elevated to the rank of Mistress, by being the Master's object of affections. She resents her past life as a slave and enjoys all the luxuries of being a Mistress, even that of being served. Sound plays a great role in 12 years a slave, starting from the scene in which the slaves are being shipped to New Orleans, where the sound imitates a steamboat siren. Later we will hear this sound again in the scene where an attempt has been made by Tibeast to lynch Solomon, and the tension when he hangs on the rope standing tiptoe is intensified to unbearableness by the pitching sound of crickets. This film is even more valid today since the consequences of the slavery in America can be still felt and slavery in the world has not yet been annulled. Maybe it doesn't have the same form as then but it is present even in the so called democratic countries in the capitalist profiteers' treatment of their employees, who like the slaves have no right to speak up against injustice.