"I simply ask that you use all of your senses before rendering judgment"

Rating: 9/10 (12 April 2014)

Directed by Steve McQueen and crew, this is definitely one of the very best films to come out in recent years. 12 YEARS A SLAVE is expertly filmed and gives an immediate recreation of the antebellum South. The acting by just about everyone is similarly outstanding, with special kudos going to Chiwetel Ejiofor as Solomon Northrup, Sara Paulson as Mistress Ebs, Lupita Nyong'o as Patsey, and Paul Dano as Tibeats. This film truly captures the barbarity of slavery in America and slavery in general: The empathy with its victims is disturbingly keen. Scenes such as that of the mother being separated from her young children at the auction are realistically heartrending. This film is also revealing of the Biblical justifications that slaveholders often used and the frequency with which female slaves were raped by plantation owners and overseers. At the same time, however, all of the characters are well-rounded. Without sugarcoating anything, 12 YEARS A SLAVE portrays even the cruelest of its subjects as eminently human and shows the varying degrees of humanity and inhumanity among slaveholders. Plenty happens, with a number of reversals and surprises, but, as in many intelligent dramas, there isn't any one defining climactic moment. There are one or two vague spots, and the sheer number of characters can be confusing. Nevertheless, I cannot imagine anyone with a normal attention span and interest in the subject matter failing to be engrossed by 12 YEARS A SLAVE. Yes, this subject has been done before in a number of earlier films, but it's still done very well here.
As important as its subject may be, however, 12 YEARS A SLAVE is not just a film about slavery in America during the 1800s. It's about the will to power and the will to survive, human greed, human dignity, human guile and deception, and many other complications that occur between members of the human race. While it never stops to preach, the psychology of it all is powerful stuff, and there are characters in whom any modern person will find her/himself. As odd as this may sound, anyone who's ever worked at a job where they were treated disparagingly or been pressured to downplay their level of education and intelligence in order to avoid offending their "superiors" should immediately identify with the plights of Solomon Northrup and the other slave characters.
Still, if you want to just watch it for the story and don't feel like analyzing its many themes, you may easily do so. 12 YEARS A SLAVE is just a very fine, perhaps even great drama, the sort that can be watched again and again. If you enjoy this film, I might also recommend 1997's ARMISTAD.