An important and better than worthy film

Rating: 10/10 (20 January 2014)

First and foremost this is a tale of such soulful and poetic power that it is (I believe) impossible to watch it without being affected on an emotional level. In other hands this story might have appeared to the viewer as more of a strict sermon on the evils of slavery, with an overemphasis on melodrama perhaps and a fair amount of "worthy" speech making. It is, after all, awards season and the cynic in me cannot help but look around each year and pick out the formula "Oscar gold" winners and lament the presence of a film which deserves them. Here though we finally have something to shred all that cynicism away, because at its core, 12 Years a Slave is allowed to unravel with a seamlessness and natural poignancy rarely found in modern film.
It is not very often that the camera, in this day and age, is allowed to linger on such small details as an actors face and the emotions they are feeling. It is perhaps even rarer to find leading actors capable of dealing with that kind of close up scrutiny, who are then able deliver a performance worthy of the unforgiving nature of the never ceasing examination of the camera lens. Great credit must therefore go to Director Steve McQueen, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Lupita Nyong'o and Michael Fassbender collectively, for leading and performing to such a high standard amongst other splendid performances.
It is a cinematic piece which has elements of Terence Mallick, which is a point I have taken from a review I heard on BBC Radio 5 Live - but most importantly, there is no other film, to my mind, that is like it. In the two and a bit hours of watching, you will be taken through all the wrongs and evils of a time in World history, that is little talked about and which is deserving of prominent coverage to throw a little light into those dark recesses of human conscience. It is a rare privilege to be seated in a cinema for a film which I think will be studied and reviewed again many times over in the course of the next decade or more.
If anyone ever makes a better film about the subject of Slavery, I will eat my hat with relish!