12 Years a Slave

There’s not much I can say about this movie that other, better educated, more well positioned people than myself could say about it. It is a harrowing movie, ugly by necessity. Slavery is depicted the harshest, cruelest, most realistic terms; the fear, the resignation, the loss of hope, and the inhuman brutality. There is no white savior that learned the error of their racist ways. Even the smallest kindness shown by people like Benedict Cumberbatch’s plantation owner or his field manager are underscored by the idea that their kindnesses are more patronizing, and maintaining a harmony between master and slave, than they are genuine care or concern. Even when Solomon wins his freedom, it is not through heroism or defiance; it’s through use of the legal system. It is justice served, but it hardly feels like vindication, as he has to leave behind fellow slaves to whom he has grown close. You don’t watch this movie for uplifting sentiment, though. You watch it for the powerhouse performances of Chiwetel Ejiofor and Lupita Nyong'o, giving the kind of raw, emotional performances that transcend acting and become embodiment. You watch to learn, to know, and to understand the cruelty that lies not just in the history of the United States, but formed the foundation of it, and that the cruelty didn’t start or end at the end of a whip. This is an unflinching, harrowing movie, not one to entertain for sure, but one that must be seen and experienced.