I saw this on the day it was awarded Best Picture at the Oscars. Given that's it's a major film about American History, and it's not terrible, it was always likely to be an Oscar contender. But should it have won? Having seen only about half of the nominated films I can't really say. But I can say that it wasn't as good as Gravity.
12 Years a Slave is a fairly straight-forward story of a guy called Solomon who get's his identity stolen. And it's a thorough identity theft. This isn't just someone dealing with unauthorised purchases on his credit card, he literally loses his identity as a free man, and, as the title suggests, becomes a slave for 12 years.
The first part of the film is a concerted effort to convince us what a fine gentleman he is, and there's lots of dandy clothes and curt nodding to other fine gentleemen. In one flashback to happier times a shopkeeper invites him to peruse a new cravat.
Once he gets kidnapped you get to see all the different thoughts in Solomon's mind, as represented by what happens to other captives. There's one who tries to stand up to the captors (it doesn't end well for him), and one who is lucky enough to be re-captured by his previous master.
Solomon decides to keep his head down on the plantation, can't resist occasionally showing what a superior man he is. My favourite part of the film is a very standard prison-drama type section where one of the guards (Paul Dano) is picking on him, because he's annoyed that Solomon is so good at everything, in this case something about a creek. Solomon is also really good at being humble, which further enrages the guard. Things come to a head with an extended hanging scene, where McQueen deploys his technique of lingering on a shot for noticeably longer than you expect. Sometimes this is quite effective, sometimes it just slows things down.
There's a few other unusual shots, for example when you first see Solomon playing the violin it's shown from inside the violin itself. I'm not sure if this is important, or just the director keeping himself busy. There's one bit where he needlessly cuts to some leaves in the tree, and I got a bit worried there'd be a ten minute fade out on a single leaf, like a Terrence Malick film. The sound is also quite intrusive, and during the church scenes you sometimes get overlapping sounds.
Any time you hear any scripture it's used for justification of evil slavery, and the Church is overall shown in a very bad light. The happier alternative to this is the slave singing, which is very powerful, especially during a funeral scene where Solomon (Chiwetl Ejiofor) looks incredibly anguished.
Since you already know Solomon's story arc (free-slave-free) it's more interesting watching what happens to the other characters. The star is undoubtedly evil plantation manager Michael Fassbender, who Steve McQueen also directed in Hunger and Shame . There's some good bits where he forces the tired slaves to get up in the middle of the night to dance in a party that clearly only he is enjoying. Echoes of the madness of Django Unchained. I also enjoyed the character of his wife, Mistress Epps, who is always there in the background chiding him for his incompetence, and urging him to take it out on the slaves, especially the pretty slave girl he likes the most. She's played by Lupita Nyong'o, who won the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.
The message of the film is nicely layered, as you see different types of slaves, including those who try and play the system to their advantage and become favoured, and those who can't take it and just want to die. There's a good bit where an overseer tells his story, which gives some insight into slavery from a slavers perspective. This food for thought is always subtly delivered, at at least until Brad Pitt arrives. He plays a very pious voice-from-the-future character who patiently explains to a frenzied Michael Fassbender why slavery is wrong.
The final line of the film ("There's nothing to forgive") may also be significant, if it's taken to be about slavery in general. Could this be McQueen, in the voice of Solomon, forgiving the slavers? It's unlikely Solomon is feeling too forgiving, he's had a rotten decade.
In summary, this is a very good film. The scenes in Mississippi (I think) all look great, and there's plenty of stylistic touches and colourful characters to make me want to see it again. Most of all, it's a cracking story.
If only it was set in space.
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