Saturday 19 October 2013

REVIEW - 12 YEARS A SLAVE


When Mr. Moon arrives at Edwin Epps' plantation to rescue Solomon Northup from the ages upon ages he has spent in bondage, it's only more surprising for him than it is for us. Has it been 12 years? Has it been mere weeks? Has it been an entire lifetime? It has, one way or another, been a very long time, an eternity, an infinity. He has been suppressed, compressed into something resembling just the wreckage of a human being, no longer seen as one by the world around him. As an object thieved from individual existence and bound into effective worthlessness as a conscious entity, he is not so much a victim of racism as of plain inhumanity. If this is finally the film that America, the world's most famous, prolific and successful filmmaking nation, needs, if this is finally the challenge it ought to have met so many years ago, it too is a part of that infinity, not to explain nor apologise for the sins mankind once committed nor to deter use from committing them again, but to reflect, with honesty and urgency, and cruel, brutal force. And it's not just America that must meet this force, and succumb to it. It's all of mankind. Steve McQueen is foremost an artist, and he deals with artistic convention, crafting a work that is a familiar story told using familiar tools but to unfamiliar ends. Immediately, it is a dazzling meeting of sound and image. Cumulatively, it is riveting. It is also the first of his films to relate directly to the world in which it is situated, and we too. The unbearable pain that Northup experiences once rescued, the bewildering terror of reacquainting himself with a life he struggled for so long to see again, cannot compare to the hopelessness that has consumed the lives of so many around him and, as McQueen refuses to permit us to forget, so many others. And so a portrait of the ordeal of one man becomes a portrait of the whole human race, of the enslavers and the enslaved, of pure humanity and pure inhumanity, of pure intelligence and pure stupidity. The reason you can't turn away? It's simple - 12 Years a Slave isn't just about Solomon Northup. It's about you.

6 comments:

  1. Another great one. McQueen has now uplifted himself into the elite list of modern filmmakers. Three great films to on your resume and its just the beginning. He's a talent to reckoned with?
    We know its Ejiofor's show. Few words on Fassbender and Nyong'o?

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    1. Michael Fassbender is as good as you'd expect. Lupita Nyong'o... well, if the Academy fail to recognise her performance, goodness only knows what the world's come to.

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  2. Chile Best Foreign Film submission, Gloria - official trailer
    http://youtu.be/Ax8lYeZIh44

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  3. i guess i'll see this eventually..although i'm usually not one for films that seem as being "about" an important issue or that people seem to project as having some ultra whatever of respectability or "importance" .especially when you know it's gonna deal with an issue like slavery...or that something like that gonna play a big part in the film.

    just feel this film is gonna be way over rated *to me* and people are raving partly because it's on the right side of things.

    yes,i may like this film but based on 'oscar bait' slant and subject has me thinking this may be film i admire/respect maybe like/think it's ok. but not one to make me feel enthused.and i really *want* to be enthused about something...

    being a loser never means you have to feel sorry about having opinions that neither tie in with award watchers nor the mainstream top five weekend boxoffice types either.

    maybe, it's time we take over/ all five of us...

    p.s.

    i 'admire'/thought shame was ok but i wasn't raving about that it either.'shame' can't hate it/can't love it either.just another movie everyone else (well, you know what i mean) went crazy over.that didn't kill in this geek's land.

    but hey maybe there could be a sequel/just for *more* full frontal. :)

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    1. That 'importance' you mention is irrelevant, rly. It's a very good film, regardless.

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