A great story being told to the world.

Rating: 10/10 (5 January 2015)

12 Years a Slave is a true story about a man named Solomon Northup, an educated and free black man, who lived in Saratoga, New York. During the 1840's, he was abducted and shipped to the south to be sold for slavery. The movie entails an emotional and thoughtful insight to the idea of slavery, before it ended.
In almost every scene of 12 Years a Slave, it conveys some sort of the truth of America's sin... Slavery. To this day of the film world, it, in my opinion, is one of the best movies to portray the life of slaves during the 1800's. It had brought out intense feelings and thoughts throughout the film. Those feelings and thought carried a sense of dignity and uncertainty as no one has really approached a something anything similar to this.
Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Solomon Northup, who at one point was a free man from Saratoga, enjoying the company by his children and wife. Then a kidnapped slave sent to Washington D.C. to be passed on by masters the next. He fell into the life he never expected to see happen to him again.
12 Years a Slave is more than a story about a slave waiting to see his family once again, but a story about shame and terror to see the next day. Slaves were to be slapped, whipped, and hung if they were to disobey their new masters, in which many did. The film is the complete opposite to the average slavery film of them trying to escape, but about refusing to accept a failure, as if they have given up on their life because they don't see an end to what they have been brought to.
Between each of Solomon's masters, you can see the different types of slave owners there may be in the world of slavery. For example, Master Ford wasn't the typical slave owner, he cared for the safety of his slaves.Like when Soloman/Platt has started trouble by fighting one of the white men. Ford had two choices, to allow them to kill Solomon or sell him out to another Master in secret. Then there was Master Epps, who would torture and was downright evil. He was your typical slave owner, who didn't seem to care for others feelings but only if the work is to be done. Within both Masters, you may see the differences in which slave owners were in the past.
All in all, 12 Years a Slave was a tremendous film and was very deep in thought with the idea of slavery. The entire cast did an exceptional performance and I hope to see more from Chiwetel Ejiofor.