12 Years a Slave takes viewers through a journey of the South during the Civil War, including the harsh reality of life as a slave.

Rating: 10/10 (20 December 2015)

Based on the true story of Solomon Northup, a free citizen of New York who is sold into slavery, comes a provocative film which represents the cruelties of slavery in a captivating fashion. Viewers see for themselves what the life of a slave entailed, including unjust whippings, desperation, and fierce racism which was completely accepted at the time. This adaptation of the South during the Civil War is unsettling to say the least. We see slaves stripped of all of their dignity and treated like they are less than human, slaves separated from their families to be worked to death on plantations, and the lack of resolution when it comes to slavery. At the end of the film, we read that Northup was unable to bring justice to the situation as he was unable to testify in court against his kidnappers.
The most startling scenes of the film include raw crimes of humanity, such as lynchings, rape, and whipping of slaves. Solomon Northup, who assumes the slave name "Platt," is almost hanged himself after Tibeats, a plantation over looker, accuses him of not following instructions. Tibeats attempts to hang Platt, but is stopped because he does not own Platt and therefore would be doing a disservice to the plantation owner. Instead of letting Platt return to his work, Platt is kept in the noose holding himself up by his tiptoes for what must have been hours until his Master returns and cuts him down. After this, Platt tells his owner that he is actually a free citizen and not a slave. His owner is unable to listen to this, and Platt is sold to Master Epps and taken to his plantation.
At Master Epps plantation, we are introduced to Patsey, a female slave who picks upwards of 500 pounds of cotton a day without fail. Patsey is the main recipient of Master Epps angered affection, which we see in an extremely unnerving scene where Patsey lies lifeless as Master Epps rapes, slaps, and chokes her. Later on, Mistress Epps refuses to give Patsey soap because she is jealous of the relationship between she and her husband. When Patsey returns, Master Epps makes Platt brutally whip Patsey as he and his wife look on in sadistic pleasure.
More aspects of slave society that we see first hand are slaves inability to read or write, as well as their work and mourning songs. When Mistress Epps asks Platt if he learned to read from his previous owner, he tells her that he was only taught a few words here or there. In response, she says "Don't trouble yourself with it... Any more will earn you a hundred lashes." In one of the most moving scenes of the film, we see a group of slaves singing 'Roll Jordan Roll' to mourn a fellow slave who died working in the cotton fields. We see that the hope for slaves to ever experience anything other than cruelty is so weak that their only hope is for salvation in the afterlife.
12 Years a Slave is an evocative film that represents slavery in its purest form- in a way that all people can understand its brutality. The film is successful in making viewers extremely uncomfortable and sometimes forcing them to look away because it is hard for us now to envision a world where something like this actually occurred.