REVIEW - '12 Years A Slave'

Okay, so this movie was listed in my October preview for movies coming out.  Every advertisement I saw for it said "October 18", so I was anxiously awaiting the 18th to go see this movie.  Earlier that week on a film blog I follow it had an article stating that '12 Years A Slave' was starting a limited run on October 18 (NY and LA), expand somewhat the following week (other big cities), and be released nationwide November 1.  I was disappointed that I had to wait a little bit longer, sure, but I was still excited to see this movie.  November 1 comes along....it's still not in Muncie.  I looked up Anderson....it's not there.  I looked up showtimes for a few smaller, more arthouse/independent theaters that might have it....and the closest one was in Indianapolis at the theater inside the Keystone Fashion Mall.  I used to go to that mall and the Sheraton hotel connected to it for FBLA state conventions in high school so I had been wanting to go back there sometime.  Now I have an excuse to stroll down memory lane, even though it is a little under an hour away and the movie will probably be coming to Muncie sometime within the next few weeks, but oh well.  It was worth it.

'12 Years A Slave' (R) ***1/2

Based upon Solomon Northup's autobiography of the same name, '12 Years A Slave' follows Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a free black man living in New York who is also an accomplished violinist.  He is lured to Washington, D.C. under the guise of a possible entertainment gig but instead is kidnapped and sold into slavery in the south.  Now being forced to go by the name of "Platt", he is first under the ownership of William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch), a Baptist preacher and plantation owner.  After a run-in with an evil overseer (Paul Dano), he is transferred to the plantation of the cruel, abusive, drunken Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender).  Also stars Paul Giamatti as Freeman, who sells Solomon to Ford, Brad Pitt as a Canadian abolitionist working at Epp's plantation, Sarah Paulson as Mrs. Epps, 'Saturday Night Live's Taran Killam as one of the men who kidnaps Solomon, and newcomer Lupita Nyong'o as Patsy, a slave who is always under the lustful eye of Epps.

This is a very well made, extremely good/almost great movie.  Nearly everything about this movie is top notch.  It has some great cinematography and the overall look of it is fantastic.  Not enough praised can be heaped on the performances in this movie, particularly Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, and Sarah Paulson.  Ejiofor's Solomon Northup wants to escape, but at the same time he realizes that if he spoke up about his life before being enslaved he will more than likely be killed.  He is forced to lie about being able to read and write, but he still gets into the good graces of a few plantation owners by playing the violin.  He endures much cruelty and hardships, but he is not letting himself fall into despair.  A strong performance.  Fassbender's Epps is cruel beyond belief.  At one point he drunkenly stumbles into the slave's cabin in the middle of the night and forces them all to dance in his house for his own drunken amusement.  He forces Solomon Northup to whip another slave (more on that scene later).  There are other acts of cruelty that he does but I won't list them hear.  It's a sinister, snarling, evil performance.  Almost as sinister and snarling is Sarah Paulson as his wife.  She's more stern and collected than her rather volatile husband but that doesn't make her any less cruel, particularly towards Patsy.

 As far as negatives go, well, for the most part I don't really have any.  The few negatives I can think of about the movie are simply nitpicks.  I never really got a sense that twelve years had passed throughout the movie.  I know that that much time had passed only because the title told me so.  Before he's kidnapped it does say that the year is 1841, but then there is nothing else to indicate how much time has passed or what year it is.  Solomon Northup's hair gets a little bit grayer and at one point Epps is parading around and doting on a young black girl who I assumed to be an illegitimate child of his, but other than that there wasn't anything to indicate how much time was passing.  There was also an event early on in the movie in a slave cabin that didn't really feel necessary, but that event and the sense of time during the movie are both nitpicks in an otherwise very very good movie. 


This movie also left me unsettled and honestly left me at a loss for words.  After leaving the nearly packed theater once the movie was finished I just kept thinking about this movie and most of my car ride back to Muncie was also spent in silence as it was still resonating with me.  Even today as I type this review up I've been having a hard time trying to come up with words to express all of my thoughts and feelings about this movie.  Usually I'm able to crank a review out hours after watching it.  And this review was mostly written with just the positive section and the wrap-up sections still to go.  Since the wrap-up is a conclusion, of course I'm going to leave that section for last.  But the positives section I've kept starting, typing, re-typing, deleting....nothing just felt right that could fully convey my opinion.  Clearly I've been able to come up with something since this is now posted, but that's not the point. 

Now what exactly left me unsettled?  The entire movie and the cruelty that Solomon Northup endured during his enslavement.  There are many powerful scenes in the movie, but here are two that in particular left me very disturbed:

• After waking up from a drunken night in Washington, Northrup discovers he was tricked as he realizes that he's laying in a dark cell chained to the floor.  As one of his captors confronts him, the captor constantly repeats to Northup in a sinister, casual manner "You're not a free man.  You're nothing but a Georgia runaway".
• At one point Epps forces Northup to whip another slave.  The slave only went to another plantation to get a bar of soap so that they could be clean for once, as Mrs. Epps never gives this slave any soap.  After the whipping is all done and over with the camera pans down the whipping post and focuses on the bar of soap lying in the dirt and blood.  Now I have seen some extremely graphic depictions of violence in movies, but the one thing that makes me cringe every time I see or hear it is the sound of someone getting whipped and seeing the scars that the whip leaves behind.

I can't exactly compare it to the book on which it is based since I haven't read all of it.  In my Civil War class this semester we read a few chapters of it for a quiz but that was it.  But I can (kinda) compare it to Quentin Tarantino's 'Django Unchained' since both deal with slavery in the United States, albeit in different ways.  'Django' is a bloody spaghetti western/revenge movie that is basically "History of Slavery In America According To Quentin Tarantino", similar to how 'Inglourious Basterds' is basically "World War II According To Quentin Tarantino".  It's fictional, brutal, exaggerated, completely over the top and filled wall-to-wall with anachronisms (the music in particular).  '12 Years A Slave' is a fact based story of one man's actual kidnapping and twelve years of enslavement before he could finally get his freedom.  It's not an exaggerated history of an unfortunate time period in American history told to fit the twisted vision of the director.  In both movies yes slavery is rightfully depicted as being extremely cruel and the n-word is tossed around liberally in both movies, but the similarities stop there.  The actions of Michael Fassbender's Edwin Epps make the actions of Leonardo DiCaprio's Calvin Candie look like the nicest guy in the world.  

'12 Years A Slave' is a disturbing, cruel movie that will resonate with you for awhile and left me speechless for awhile.  It is extremely well made, well acted and one of the best movies I've seen this year.  While I do recommend the movie, I will admit it's not for everyone. 


TRAILERS/PREVIEWS
I'll try and keep this as a usual feature to my reviews.  I try to just talk about what I saw as opposed to what they're supposed to be about, but some of these I had to look up further info about them when I got back to Muncie.  

"Mandela:  Long Walk To Freedom" - Another Nelson Mandela biopic, with Idris Elba (the "Thor" movies, "Pacific Rim", "Prometheus") in the title role.  It looks okay.  Definitely had an Oscar-bait feel to it.  

"All Is Lost" - Looks like a cross between 'Life of Pi' and 'Gravity'.  Based on that alone it could be worth checking out.   

"Blue Is The Warmest Color" - Half of the trailer for 'Blue Is The Warmest Color' were snippets of reviews praising it.  They were boasting about the acting, the love story, and how it won the top prize earlier this year at the Cannes Film Festival.  Looking up stuff online, apparently it's a three hour NC-17 French lesbian love story.  

"The Grand Budapest Hotel" - this is the latest from Wes Anderson, the director of "Moonrise Kingdom", "Fantastic Mr. Fox", "Darjeeling Limited", "Royal Tenenbaums", "Life Aquatic", etc., etc.  Out of all of those I've only seen 'Moonrise Kingdom' (weird) and 'Fantastic Mr. Fox' (also weird).  This one has the same weird, eccentric feel of those but it also looks pretty funny.  Maybe I'll check in at some point....