12 Years a Slave

My efforts to make up for a lackluster year of movies with as many "awards season" films as possible are well under way. Last week, Mark and I brought you some thoughts on Gravity, and clearly we had quite an impact, because it has been steam-rolling the competition at the box office for the past couple of weeks. Mr. Clooney, Ms. Bullock, you're welcome.

Which brings us, or rather just me, to another notable October release, 12 Years A Slave. This year has been pretty strong on the African (-American) history flicks, with Lee Daniels' The Butler receiving a lot of attention, and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom set to hit theaters before the year is out. Though, truthfully, I saw this movie for one reason, and one reason only: Michael Fassbender.

That's not entirely true; but I do love that guy. And if actors are the reason you go to the movies, I can tell you 12 Years a Slave features a lot of them: in addition to Magneto, there's Metro Man, the Rhino, Khan, Omar Little, and that guy who gets beaten to death with a bowling pin in There Will Be Blood...Oh I'm sorry, I can't seem to get into art-house mode. I meant that alongside Fassbender, there's Brad Pitt, Paul Giamatti, Benedict Cumberbatch...um, Chalky White, and...that guy who gets tortured and killed in Looper. Seriously though, Paul Dano is a talented actor, but he always plays a sniveling weasel that other actors get to hit. (And if my nods to The Wire and Boardwalk Empire aren't clear enough, that's Michael K. Williams I am referencing.)

Also, you don't have to point out that this movie is about slaves, but all of the names I mentioned belong to white actors. It's not because I am a racist. In fact, I, too, found the cast a bit imbalanced. I'm sure it says something about either the studio and its expectations for the film's reception, or the director's interpretation of the dehumanizing anonymity that the institution of slavery inflicts on history through the use of unfamiliar black actors. Or something.

Anyways, can I just review the fucking movie now?

It should not really come as a surprise that Michael Fassbender found his way into this film. Two of director Steve McQueen's (no, not the one that died in 1980) previous projects -- Hunger and Shame -- have featured the versatile actor. This time around, thanks to Brad Pitt's production company, we can now say that the number of words in a McQueen title is directly proportional to the film's budget, since, as I mentioned, this film is loaded with familiar, albeit pale, faces.

Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Solomon Northup, a happy family man living in New York in the 1840s, who is kidnapped and forced into slavery. At first Solomon tries to maintain his identity and dignity, but he slowly succumbs to the realities of slavery. Even his name is stripped from him, and he becomes simply Pratt. I'm going to spoil the end right now, but I don't think it's a big deal, and you'll see why. Solomon makes it back to his family. Boom. Cat's out of the bag. Anyways, what becomes more and more obvious and unsettling as time goes by after leaving the theater, is that this happy ending is meaningless. This free man was kidnapped and enslaved, and that's unjust. But during his time in the South, we, the viewers, witnessed the horror of slavery in all of its forms. And when Solomon escapes and regains his freedom, it almost seems unfair. He leaves the others behind, left to die, nameless, in a system that has been around for centuries and will linger for another couple of decades. There is nothing particularly special about Solomon our protagonist, other than the fact that something unfair happened to him, and in the end, his situation was righted. And so we're left wondering -- only to realize that we know clearly enough -- the fate of Pratt's contemporaries.

The strengths and weaknesses of this film are kind of the same. We are introduced to each antebellum southern male archetype: the benevolent patriarch who cares for his slaves, the brutal and pitiful plantation owner who justifies his actions with whiskey and the word of God, the abolitionist, and an array of overseers. While it makes sense to offer these extremes, in terms of the narrative, and the trials of Solomon, it tends to walk the line between character and caricature, reminiscent of that other popular slave film, Django Unchained. On a separate, some of the dialogue delivery was a little wobbly, and it felt like high school students reciting half-memorized Shakespearian verses. Likewise, it seemed a bit forceful whenever a character would wax poetic on a core theme of the film, like slavery, freedom, equality, etc. The audience has the right and the intellect to walk away with their own opinions; and for a film where the subject matter is made so vivid and unrelenting, having the characters repeat the themes verbally is unnecessary.

Overall, it is a powerful movie, full of memorable performances. Mark read a review comparing it to Schindler's List, which, subsequently, is the expectation I had going in. In a way, I agree that the honest and straightforward approach to slavery is similar to Spielberg's vision of the holocaust. There is no glorifying of anything, not even the protagonist. And when the protagonist "wins/gets away/saves lives", no one really wins. Only see this movie if you are ready to be force-fed some cold, hard truth. If you leave the theater feeling a little queasy, it's not that month-old nacho cheese you just devoured, it's your guilt as a human being.