"12 Years a Slave" (2013)

Director Steve McQueen has chosen to make films with brutal subject matter and told with a brutal frankness appropriate for those subject matters. Whether it be a prison hunger strike (Hunger) or sex addiction (Shame), McQueen looks on his subject matter with an unbearable unflinching gaze and dares you to not turn away. This makes McQueen well suited for telling the most frank and honest depiction of slavery ever put to film in 12 Years a Slave. Based on the real life account of Solomon Northrup, a free black who was kidnapped and forced into slavery in 1840, the film tells its story from a distance but never without a real empathy. McQueen’s detachment shows horrible, atrocious incident after incident that afflicted Solomon, forced to take up the slave name Platt, and makes us simply take it in. But the film’s strength isn’t just in the physical toll on display but also the psychological undercurrent. There’s a ruthless psychological realism that takes what is already gut-wrenching and turns it into something harrowing. The depth of characterization isn’t just given to the slaves but their masters as well, who are thoroughly complicated. Solomon’s first master (Benedict Cumberbatch) is seemingly a “good white”, but is equally as complicit a part of the systematic abuse of the slaves as anyone with more externalized racism. His second master (Michael Fassbinder) is more obviously monstrous, but he’s also not a caricature. He has complex motivations on display, particularly in regards to Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o), the slave he takes as his comfort slave despite his wife’s (Sarah Paulson) obvious infuriation. He has deep feelings for Patsey but hates himself for loving someone who he sees as less than human, and these contradictory emotions come out in searing, violent and sad ways. What sets apart 12 Years a Slave apart from its other period counterparts that deal with race is how it immerses us back in the time it depicts. The film never projects modern values onto the past. Most racially charged period dramas boil down to this: “Racism is bad, but, boy, things have gotten a better. White people are bad, except for some who are decent”. 12 Years a Slave’s thematic concerns are far more nuanced. It uses Solomon’s story to examine the numerous intersecting factors that led to slavery to exist. It’s also interested in the very culture surrounding slavery, the twisted, contradictory justifications and bargains made in its name. At its center is a fantastic performance by Chiwetel Ejiofor. At every turn, Eijifor is the story’s anchor, a broken man who suffers indignity after indignity, and tries not to lose what little of his humanity remains. As Solomon suffers, we see Eijifor show us the depths of Solomon’s despair and sadness while he puts on a brave face to survive yet another day in abject cruelty. This is America’s history. We know it happened but we push it to the back of our mind and act like it’s just some awful thing from our past, but it’s not. This is something we must own up to every day as we live in a society that may not have slavery but begs ignorance to the ways its effects still endlessly ripple into the present. Perhaps more than any other reason, 12 Years a Slave is difficult to sit through due to the fact that we rarely look this head on at the subject.

Grade: ★★★★