Unbelievable!

Rating: 6/10 (26 April 2014)

The eloquent manner with which Steve McQueen conveys the injustice of slavery, a mere microcosm of centuries of endemic cowardice and brutality, can truly only be compared to the emotional depths of Amistad, the acclaimed film from the 1990's. I don't presume to know about slavery beyond what films and novels have provided in terms of storytelling, or beyond the scope of the university classroom; but I cannot imagine a more brutal, cruel intensity than this film manages to grasp for.
The story, recorded to be true, follows twelve years in the life of Solomon Northup, a free man from New York state who is kidnapped and sold into slavery in Georgia. He is removed from his family, savagely beaten, betrayed, condescended to, and reduced from an educated, prosperous livelihood to one of unspoken nothingness to which his kidnappers and "masters" have devalued him and forced him to work inhumanely. He witnesses and is forced to participate in the deaths and beatings of many fellow slaves, and is driven to the point of an inner turmoil that, despite Ejiofor's breathtaking portrayal, even the most empathetic of us cannot fully fathom. Eventually, toward the end of his twelve years of forced servitude, he meets a free man from Canada (played by the always refreshing talent, Brad Pitt) who is hired as a paid laborer to work alongside Solomon--or Platt, as he is referred to during those twelve years; upon hearing Solomon's story- -and God knows how Solomon was able to trust anyone after the series of betrayals he fell victim to--this man decides to help liberate him by finding Solomon's friends in the North and having them provide documentation of his freedom. Then one day, one of Solomon's old friends appears to cart him off back home, and does, threatening upon leaving to counter-sue Mr. Northup's now-former "master" if he tries to claim legal rights to him ever again. This is one of the most powerful scenes in the entire film, although there are many: the resolution with which Northup walks into the carriage to finally accept his rightful freedom, the brief burst of fervor with which his friend stands up for him to show that Epps no longer holds Northup's life in his hands, the despair Patsey expresses watching her friend disappear, all translate to an emotionally charged denouement. Northup cleans up, his hair now graying, arrives home for the first time in twelve years, walks into the front door of his old house where his wife, two children, son-in-law, and grandson who was named after him are all awaiting him to receive a much needed recompense for years spent apart and wondering. The burden of guilt he feels for leaving his family without him for so long is assuaged by his wife, who comforts him by saying that no apology is necessary on his part.
Incredible. All the awards this film garnered are fully justified, and I think it deserves even more than it received. Lupita Nyong'o, in her three or four scenes in which she speaks, steals the show effortlessly and with poignancy and grace; everyone can already tell, as evidenced by her Oscar win, that she does not take acting lightly, and has talent and staying power that will keep her career, and our viewing experience, in continuance.
Watching Chiwetel Ejiofor in the title role in this film is an emotional roller-coaster, a visual treat, and highly necessary to for the completion of our obviously fragmented understanding of any suffering endured long ago. The stories of slavery are so few and far between, because the unsavory nature of it all, the fact that fellow human beings were capable of such willful ignorance, somehow turns us off to their reality. But I find stories like these (and apparently there were many, though few with equally resolute and "just" endings) highly necessary to our historical understanding of cruelty and what to do when laws are so driven by greed that the human component is outrightly forgotten. Unfortunately, slavery continues today all over the world, though it has morphed from plantation slavery to sweatshops, illegal sex trades, farm cruelty, and unjust, monopolized corporate work conditions. For many people, slavery is not only a memory passed down by one's ancestors or history books, but a very present reality that still requires legal and philanthropic action in order to change.
Watching this film has a bittersweet quality: on the one hand, the United States has come so far, legally speaking, and in terms of racial equality, from the era about which this account was written, nearly 200 years ago; yet, the tragedy, other than that any of this cruelty or suffering had to be endured by anyone at all, is that those whom Solomon eventually prosecuted more or less went unpunished, since a black man was unable to bring a white man to justice in the nation's capital at the time. The beauty is the publicity and acclaim that Northup's story has received since the book's publication, and now, in climax, the film's release and subsequent Oscar attention. It serves as a monument to endurance in the face of extreme adversity, stolen identity, and prolonged despair, as well as to the work which still needs to be done to continually preserve and redefine equality to include all living, breathing, and feeling beings.
Let us not forget the amazing gift that Northup has given by sharing his story--not only in using his voice to bring poetic justice to his former "owners" and further freedom to himself--but because in using art as a medium for conveying his struggle, he has created a chain reaction of concern and insight into the depths of human cowardice and greed among his ever-growing audience.
Here's to a life well-lived, and the hope that it was not lived in vain. Thank you for your story, Solomon, and thank you to all who made its portrayal on the big screen possible.