I won't watch it again, but it's essential filmmaking

Rating: 9/10 (22 February 2014)

Hardly ever do Hollywood films deal with the topic of slavery and though it was just last year that Quentin Tarantino brought it up in Django Unchained, albeit in a decidedly different manner than Steve McQueen does in the film I'm now referring to, everyone could do with a refresher on these heinous acts. And if the first two full-length releases of the man in charge of the realisation were uncomfortable to watch, to say the least, it's all the better. Because what 12 Years a Slave is more than anything else, is the telling of horrible history – through the life of one free man that gets abducted and sold into slavery.
Chiwetel Ejiofor is portraying this real-life character and surely delivers the performance of his lifetime as him, something that should, without a doubt, be honoured with an Oscar, if the Academy doesn't want me to completely lose my faith in them. In addition to displaying his character's distress with so much authenticity that it's painful to look at, at times, he convincingly swaps his native British accent for an American one, just as his on-screen colleagues Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Fassbender do. But that really is the least important aspect about the acting cast members in 12 Years a Slave; no matter on which side they're on, they provide their roles with a huge sense of realism, which is what makes the film a true horror flick. And one that is a lot more effective than the masses of others being released in this day and age to boot, due to the fact that the atrocities are tangible.
Although I maybe should refrain from using such adjectives in the review of a film about slavery, 12 Years a Slave does have an extraordinarily beautiful cinematography, interrupting the brutal moments of violence for picturesque landscape shots that Sean Bobbitt wonderfully captures. As it is nominated for as much as nine Academy Awards, there are also many other merits to Steve McQueen's third motion picture, but that isn't really what matters. All of this having actually happened is, and thus 12 Years a Slave functions as an essential reminder about this terrible part of world history, while not making it a farcical gorefest as the Tarantino production I've mentioned in the beginning did.