Home Opinion Review: 12 Years A Slave
Review: 12 Years A Slave

Review: 12 Years A Slave

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We’re deep into Oscar season right now, and this brings out all emotional and hard hitting pieces of cinema. This years historical period piece is the harrowing tale of Solomon Northup, played by the excellent Chiwetel Ejiofor, a free born African American man from New York. This film is an adaption of his account of being kidnapped and sold into slavery in Louisiana for twelve years, directed by Steve McQueen, who brought us Hunger and the 2011 dark, addiction story Shame. This, as we all know was a particularly distressing part of American history and the film held back no punches in truly showing the extent of man’s inhumanity to man.

Eijofor is excellently cast as Solomon Northup, and plays the role with visible passion and emotion. He really makes you feel betrayed at every turn and you feel every hardship he goes through. That said, the star of the show without a doubt is Michael Fassbender, who McQueen has worked with on both his feature length releases, as the cruel, malicious and devoutly religious slave owner Edwin Epps. He brings to life, easily one of the most hated characters we will see committed to film this year, made worse by the fact that he is based on the real man himself. Smaller parts belonging to Paul Dano, Benedict Cumberbatch and Paul Giamatti, while only garnering maybe fifteen minutes of screen time between them are sometimes heroic and other times unsettling in their respective roles.
The newcomer, Lupita Nyong’o, who plays Patsey, fellow slave, friend to Solomon and the subject of Epps’ baser desires, has a difficult role to fill and while it wasn’t a poor performance, she didn’t fill the role with the potential that it had. Brad Pitt’s minute of screentime feels forced as well, and while a vital part of the narrative, I felt there needed to be more about the role he has in the film brought to screen to make the character one worth rooting for. 

12-years-a-slave2The cinematography is nothing short of beautiful, with glorious tracking shots through the Louisiana bayous and over the vast cotton fields. McQueen has clearly shown here that he knows what he is doing behind the lens of a camera. The juxtaposition of natural beauty versus unnatural cruelty adds to the importance of these shots. The lingering shots don’t linger too long and the editing is completely on point. Hans Zimmer, acclaimed composer, brings another beautiful and sometimes unsettling soundtrack to the film switching between big orchestral pieces and more intense electronic driven arrangements.

This is a long film, and not an easy watch at times (the whipping scene in particular. You’ll know which one), so if you’re planning on going to see it be prepared for this. The film falls short of what I think it could have been, and almost at times feel like the characters are being overacted to bring out the emotion that was deemed required for the scene. The timeline of the film is hard to follow at times, and a somewhat undramatic and abrupt conclusion leaves a lot to be desired, but such is the nature of adapted works of non-fiction. You must tell the story how it is.

That said, it is still a good piece of cinema that really brings to the front some of the realities of a period of time that, outside of America really, we don’t fully understand the extent of. Go see this film, if merely for the education and understanding it brings, but maybe not if it’s date night.

[easyreview cat1title=”The Arcade Verdict” cat1detail=”” cat1rating=”7″]

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