Both horrid and brilliant, 12 Years a Slave is one of the most compelling films to
portray slavery on the big-screen – ever. This astonishing film dramatizes the true events of Solomon Northup’s (Chiwetel Ejiofor) life; a free black man who is an astounding musician residing in Saratoga Spring, New York. All is well for the husband and father of two until he accepts an offer to go to Washington, D.C., with a pair of traveling entertainers. Once they are in D.C., the two supposed traveling entertainers treat
Solomon to a nice dinner and wine. The audience soon realizes, if they haven’t already,
the entertainers are not what they appear to be. In just a few brief scenes, we find our
modest and amicable main character, alone and chained inside a prison cell. Solomon has
been sold into slavery.
Solomon wakes to this grim apparent future, in shock of what has transpired.
It does not take long for him to find out that traffickers have kidnapped him and have
presumably established transport of his now enslaved body to Louisiana. With Chitiwel’s
pain-stricken expressions and sense of longing that this was all just a horrid dream; the
audience is transported into the body and soul of Solomon. We feel his pain and sorrow
with every unimaginable torture soon to become prevalent in his life. Ejiofor is able to
convey tremendous depth and meaning without a single word. Due to Solomon’s lack of
ability to express what he is truly feeling, this actor’s ability to communicate such despair
and deprivation with a single stare is both a necessity as well as an extraordinary prize.
And through this all, we know that Solomon will persevere; he will vanquish his pending
With this, we begin do see the director’s (Steve McQueen) powerful, artistic,
style. The utilization of pure silence with snippets of noises from nature, the landscape
views, the blank stares; McQueen has reached new heights. The director intertwines
Solomon’s documentation of freedom and the fact that he is forced to pretend that he is
not able to read or write, to express the truly unnaturalness of slavery. McQueen then
contrasts these hidden aspects of Solomon’s life to convey that every slave, no matter his
skill set, has the right to be free.
12 Years a Slave, with a tremendous adapted script by John Ridley, plays out on
screen as a day-to-day experience of Solomon’s life. There’s no break, no arch, and
certainly no reprieve from the horrors. Solomon's first slave owner (Benedict Cumberbatch)
displays the most humane and kind characteristics in terms of slave ownership, but then,
when Solomon over steps his given boundaries, he sold off to Edwin Epps (Michael
Fassbender.) With a stupendous and horrifying performance, Fassbender portrays a
character a sadistic, malicious, and all around terrifying slave owner. As soon as Solomon
steps foot on his property, Edwin sets out to break him. The chilling and harrowing
intimacy Edwin displays in his vulgarized relationships adds to the all around excellence
of the film, script, and acting performances.
Another striking performance is that of Lupita Nyong’o who plays Patsey, the
slave who picks more cotton each day than any other slave (500 pounds of it) and Edwin
has a pernicious obsession with. This fixation transpires into a large portion of the film
and unveils tortures in a new light, which will overwhelm the majority of audience members with its brutality and thematic elements.
It's truly the acting ensemble and directing which set 12 Years a Slave apart from
so many films this year. Through these aspects, the film allows us to view slavery with a
new perspective. We are immersed in the sin of America with no censor or interruptions.
With moments that are overwhelmingly difficult to watch and emotionally impacting, we
are able to see what freedom and perseverance truly looks like.
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