Phenomenal Depiction of the Horrors during the Era of Slavery

Rating: 9/10 (4 January 2015)

Throughout the film, many horrific scenes were portrayed to reflect on atrocities during the period of 1800's slavery. From the brutality of southern slave-owners to the treatment of once freemen. Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) was once a freeman living in peace and happiness with his family, until being tricked and deceived and eventually being sent to a southern plantation.
Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Fassbender play two very different personalities of white slave-owners. This shows that while it is evident slavery was not a controversy in the south, some slave-owners took it upon themselves to make the task of slaves more manageable.
I am personally astounded by the level of mistreatment of slaves shown in the film. Slavery is thought of as a bad, morally bankrupt way of life, but 12 Years a Slave really opens up the eyes of the viewer by embedding pictures of true and accurate brutality done to humans no different than ourselves. I viewed slavery as what we are taught to view it as, but I never realized the level of horrors met by slaves in their everyday lives.