It Happened Whether You Want To Believe it or Not

Rating: 9/10 (4 October 2017)

I can understand if this movie isn't some people's cup of tea. The way it's paced is a little jarring (although to me not "boring" as some have suggested). And I get that no one but the Marquis de Sade would enjoy watching so many scenes of harrowing brutality. Maybe you just don't find the subject matter interesting, or you like a different kind of storytelling. That's entirely valid.
But some of these reviews are downright offensive. Nothing is more irritating than reading reviews of white people who are pissy that "there are no good white people" in the film, or "we get it - all white people are bad, all black people are good." Yes, I know, it's uncomfortable to accept that slavery was that evil, that sadistic, and entirely motivated by race - BUT IT WAS. Even the "nicest" slave-owners were racist douchebags. It's a myth (started and perpetuated by racist confederate veterans, by the way) that slaves were treated as anything more than animals.
I'm glad that this movie is so graphic because judging from some of these reviews people need to be reminded that this wasn't just a few years of involuntary servitude for people. I say this as someone whose ancestors owned slaves 200 years ago - what is so difficult about admitting it was this bad? This attitude that "it wasn't so black and white" (pun intended) is a complete crock. White southerners viewed black people as inferior beings, semi-human, MERCHANDISE to do whatever they wished with. If you have a problem with honest history being depicted, then you're the problem, not the movie.
End rant. I personally think it's a beautiful film, and one that is obviously necessary in a time when some people want to believe the depicted events are exaggerated. Maybe that's because accepting the brutality and totality of our past crimes has implications for how we should behave moving forward, and people don't want to have to change their belief systems. But going down that rabbit-hole would take more words than this space allows.