12 years a slave, English Hollywood film movie review, Johnson Thomas, Rating: * * * *
English Film Review
Johnson Thomas
Agonizingly Real
Film: 12 years a Slave
Cast: Chiwitel Ejiafor, Michael Fassbender,Brad
Pitt, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Giamatti, Sarah Paulson, Lupita Nyong’o
Director: Steve McQueen
Rating: *
* * *
Steve
McQueen directs from a script he co-wrote with John Ridley, based in part on
Solomon Northup's memoir(true Story) about his life as a free man in the 1800’s
, subsequent kidnap and enslaving and finally ending in his rescue by a
Canadian abolitionist.
It’s a
rare first hand account of a 19th century memoir written by Solomon
Northup, (who is the central character in the film), a free black man from
upstate New York who got kidnapped on a lure and was subsequently sold off, under
a false name, Platt, and papers attesting to the fact, for slave labor in Louisiana. It’s an
account that even the most vilely depicted(in the memoir), Edwin Epps, couldn’t
find fault with. The everyday drudgery and misery of enslaved plantation life
have been depicted with raw hurtful intensity. The scenes depicting the torture
of slaves are like a punch in the gut. It’s definitely not meant for the faint
hearted.
British
director Steve McQueen, born of West-Indian parents ensures that the audience
feels the pain of his lead characters. Every whiplash leaves a raw, bloody and excruciatingly
painful welt on your subconscious mind. Of course it’s not all torture and
pain. McQueen sweeps his camera around the countryside capturing pastoral
beauty replete with stunningly picturesque cloudy skies, old gnarled tress,
cotton fields , Spanish moss and majestic homes. But the people inhabiting
those homes and owning those lands are not as beautiful. They are the ones who
inflict hurtful wounds on those enslaved.
The story begins from 1841 when Solomon
Northup (British actor Chiwetel Ejiofor), a violin player living free in New
York with his wife and children, gets tricked into a circus job in Washington,
D.C., and then winds up as human chattel in the Deep South. The subsequent 12
years of inhumanity and courage forms the basis for this well-written and
structured script which McQueen co-wrote with African-American John Ridley.
Chiwetel Ejiofor is absolutely mesmerizing
as the enforced slave who stays alive on a thin thread of hope that he will eventually
be re-united with his family. It’s a sublime performance that is certainly
worthy of an Oscar. In fact, the film is littered with stunning performances- Lupita
Nyong'o gives the tortured, raped and perennially abused slave-girl Patsey, heart-wrenching
honesty, Paul Giamatti lends gruffness to his slave trader persona, Benedict
Cummerbatch as Northup’s first master brings out the contradictions in his
persona to vivid life, Paul Dano is nasty and conniving as plantation overseer
John Tibeats and Michael Fassbender makes Edwin Epps look vile yet driven by
psychological turmoil. Hans Zimmer’s masterful musical strokes ebb and flow as
required of by the inhuman drama unleashed on screen. Production designer Adam
Stockhausen, costume designer Patricia Norris and cinematographer Sean
Bobbitt make the engagement visually authentic and the experience completely
heart-felt.
This
is a somber, hurtful almost poetic film
that delivers the horrors of bondage with true grit!
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