Manchester City Left Back Conundrum

12 Years a Slave (2013): Another View by Rob Milarvie

Dir: Steve McQueen

Wow. Just wow. The accolades this picture may receive are entirely justified as this is just an exceptional piece of work by artist come filmmaker Steve McQueen who appears to consistently create better films than the last. His previous features include Hunger and Shame, both led by Michael Fassbender who seems to have built a special relation with McQueen. Furthermore, what Hunger and Shame both attained in abundance was the artistry of storytelling combined with eloquent direction. And 12 Years a Slave even more so, expands the qualities director McQueen has and has taken them to new heights.

In an earlier review I mentioned in the inevitability of Gravity receiving Best Film at the Oscars, with this new instalment it has indeed blurred my original perspective and set up a thrilling face off at the Awards, with other features such as Captain Phillips and Blue Jasmine on their tails.

First off, with Fassbender taking a more subsided position in this particular casting, he is replaced by none other than Chiwetel Ejiofor, a versatile actor performing in Sci-fi’s (Serenity), Comedies (Kinky Boots) and Thrillers (Inside Man). He breaks barriers with this performance playing the little known Solomon Northop, a freeman in 1841 being kidnapped and sold into slavery. This biographical drama certainly seems to have inserted a benchmark for the Academy Awards only to be rightfully matched by Gravity. Personally Chiwetel Ejiofor should win Best Actor with this exhausting (in the best possible sense) and degrading performance of a character’s entire lifestyle and physique shifting through the horrors of American slavery. However even with 12YaS winning Best Film at the BAFTA’s, Chiwetel still fell short to Matthew McConaughey in Dallas Buyer’s Club, which is a February release. In any consolation Lupita Nyong'o playing Patesy, a friend of Solomon at the Epps’ plantation, deservedly received a Best Supporting Actress nomination at the BAFTA’s and hopefully she will also at the Oscars.

Anyhow, 12YaS may not be for everyone with its captivating brutality, a main factor that the Academy Awards may take into account, that and the fact most Americans don’t like admitting they committed these inhumane acts against their own in just under 2 centuries ago. Certainly the untainted sequences of tortures directed towards the slaves indeed do challenge the viewer’s emotional palate. With one moment in particular occurring when Solomon is suffering one horrific torture, but the other slaves continue working, an unimaginable acknowledgment of normality. The cinematography truly capturing the idea of beauty and horror coexisting in one long take. Even through the brutality, the purity of the narrative is what will make audiences cry and admire this piece of storytelling.

This stylistic approach of McQueen is then coupled with composer Hans Zimmer, a melodist of impeccable quality, maintaining his infamous scores originally featuring in The Thin Red Line and later Inception with some tweaks and adjustments for this particular piece which again adds to the emotional venture of all audiences.

The actuality of the events is reinforced time and time again, with no Tarantino sugar coating of Blaxploitation components, which is perfectly fine but Django Unchained comparisons are belittling of the magnitude 12YaS has reached. A film that befits the time era and the monstrosities that occurred with a first person account of events, an element fortifying the images on screen and therefore representing a possibility of altering the perspectives of our upcoming generation whose knowledge of American slavery is within its infancy.

Solomon Northop’s memoirs of his 12 year ordeal is something that defies belief and raises awareness to why haven’t people, including myself, been made aware of this certain piece of autobiography. As stated earlier, Ejiofor near perfected the role as Solomon but unfortunately the horrors of slavery has at its helm, monstrous people. Firstly Paul Dano’s character Tibeats appears to be the initial obstacle for Solomon who raises the ideas of not rebelling against the ‘Masters’ as the punishments surpass the ‘crime’ committed. His confrontations with Tibeats begin to affect everything about himself and set boundaries Solomon had to conform to. Later, American Horror Story’s Sarah Paulson playing Mistress Epps, a character of power with outbursts of brutality. Her appearance primarily forces Solomon to repress his educational background and implement an illiterate façade. And of course Fassbender’s Edward Epps appears to epitomise the fanatical and just god-awful people of American slavery who believed slaves were their ‘property’ and what they do to them is their business, to whit one sequence is a sexual encounter which Epps has with Patsy which is something of a Lynchian motif of atmospheric sadism.

McQueen appears to hit the jackpot with this heroic piece of work adhering to the original text but expanding on it with quintessential McQueen panache. Even with only 3 full length features under his belt, I feel no shame with already stating McQueen has style that both attains his artistic forte adjusted to on screen production but instilling a storytelling methodology that encapsulates audiences and has them in tears, indefinitely when the credits roll on. Spectacular acting, superb scores and magnificent direction from one of Britain’s finest.

Think of any superlative, and that’s 12 Years a Slave.