A Raw & Rivoting Look Inside the Business of Slavery

Rating: 10/10 (30 October 2013)

As a southerner and lover of history, I know all about slavery and the trail of blood and tears it left on families throughout America. However, my knowledge of this history and the workings of slavery would not and did not prepare me for 12 Years a Slave. British director Steve McQueen placed me in a time capsule and introduced me to Solomon Northup (actor Chiwetel Ejiofor, pronounced CHOO-ih-tell EDGE-ee-o-for), a freeborn African American man who was kidnapped, transported to Louisiana and enslaved. Honestly, I felt as if I was in the antebellum South, picking cotton, being lashed, witnessing lynchings and praying that one day I'd be free...
12 Years a Slave tells the true story of Northup while describing the very detailed and grueling atrocities he faced while a slave. Prior to his kidnapping, he was a well-off educated and talented husband and father in Sarasota Springs, NY who played the violin. But one incident would revoke him of his human rights, strip him of his birth name (renamed "Platt") and lead him to an auction house to be sold as cattle. However, as millions of other slaves, Northup would learn to adjust to the cruelties that he would face in the name of a God who condoned the enslavement and mistreatment of others.
After viewing 12 Years a Slave, I was raw (emotionally and mentally) as I hadn't witnessed anything as riveting since Mel Gibson's Passion of the Christ. As I sat in the movie theater about nine years ago with closed and tear-filled eyes, listening as Jesus (actor Jim Caviezel) took lashing after lashing my heart ached. And then to be escorted to that place again by McQueen, let's just say that I'm fragile and raw but wiser. While it hurts to know that the country that I love allowed hatred to imprison generations of my ancestors, I'm wiser because I know that I must be the change I want to see. Hate has no place in this world and I'll always use my voice and keystrokes to advocate for those who are mistreated as a result of it.
I applaud McQueen on his ability to pull moviegoers into Northup's world, not with sympathy but with a genuine respect for his ability to live in an unfamiliar world and not give up on his desire to see his family again. More so, Ejiofor's acting was mesmerizing as he pulled me into his world each time I gazed into his eyes.