12 Years a Slave

2013 best picture

Rating: 15/20 (Jen: 19/20)

Plot: A free black violinist is man-napped and sold as the titular slave.

At the risk of sounding insensitive, I just have to ask one question: What's the point? This is a good movie, maybe even the definitive film on the subject matter, but what does it really say about the human spirit? It's almost completely devoid of anything resembling hope. It's like director Steve McQueen is taking our hands and saying, "Ok, gang, this is going to be about two hours of brutality. You'll shake your head, drop your jaw, wince a little, get angry, probably even hate yourself and a large portion of humanity during the thing. Hold on tight, now. We're not going to pull our punches. We're going to get right in there and shove your face in one of the most hateful parts of American history. But if you hang in there, I promise you one thing--I will let you look at my Academy Award." Then, he'll add, "You can't touch it though."

But what's the message here? What do we learn? How does this help us grow as people? What's it change? It's a textbook version of the American slavery story, allowing some white actors to spit out the word "nigger" and snarl a little or maybe a lot. So, the message is that people, especially white people, are evil. Well, we already knew that. That's nothing new, especially for kids growing up with more of an emphasis on multicultural education in schools. Black people were treated like property, deprived basic human rights, beaten severely, taken away from their loved ones, and even killed. White people aren't very nice, not here and not really at any time in history. We're shown excruciating and excruciatingly lengthy scenes where the main character is hung by his neck and staying alive only by dancing on his tiptoes or a woman is stripped and severely whipped. The latter's a long shot that has to last about five minutes but seems to last about twenty, and it's difficult to watch and recalls Mel Gibson's Jesus movie in its ability to make us cringe. There's a line here, and I'm not sure where it is or if it's crossed or just how jagged it is. No, I'm not asking for a watered-down version of the story. But skipping from one terrible deed to the next like this did just kind of felt like they were saying, "Hey, look at this? Pretty awful, huh? Look at it some more!" But other than the gut impact and the realization that people have the capabilities of being as evil as we thought they could, what does it all add up to? Perhaps most importantly, what's it do to the American collective consciousness?

And what about black people? What do we learn about blacks? That they're capable of playing violins? That they were once not even considered human beings by a large segment of the American population? If it's not one of those two, I'm not sure what the message is because that's all we're given here. And that, to me, is what makes this sort of exploitative. I know it's based on a true story and all, and that story is a crushing one with the characters and their plights handled with compassion. But where's the part about blacks being human beings? You'd think McQueen would know better. This is the story of one man's descent into becoming less than a man, and he huddles in the despairs associated with that loss of his humanity for a couple hours before emerging once again. The story's bookended with scenes with Solomon's wife and two children, he shows off an intelligence when he helps Cumberbatch's character find a way to transport logs more efficently, and the fact that he plays the violin is bowed (not drummed, I guess) into our heads several times. But where's the part about hope? Where's the part where the black man is the hero? We really need Brad Pitt to squint his way down from Canada to be the big hero in this? As great as Chiwetel Ejiofor was--and he was great--startlingly quiet, intensely hopeless, and emotionally wrung in a role that had to have been as challenging mentally as it was physically--isn't he really more of a prop in this? He's a character who grabs us in very murky water and weighs us down until we're drowning in despair, and that's all very well and good if that was the director's intention, but I'm not sure if it's sophisticated enough, has enough tragic depth, or sings enough. It's hopeless for the sake of hopelessness.

The imagery is the type of stuff that will stay with you for a long time after you watch the movie. Still, other than the shock and awe, I'm not sure if it's enough to really make you feel the story or for a white middle-aged guy like me to really empathize with the characters. 12 years seemed like 2 hours, just enough time for me to get to the bottom of my popcorn bucket. The story's so episodic, a brutal outline. It's glossy stuff, but does the movie sweat enough? The focus on two black characters--and I do want to emphasize once again how terrific Ejiofor is but also praise Lupita Nyong'o's work as Patsey, another physically demanding role, especially so for a first-time movie star--helps give us focus, and it's easy to identify with the conflict on a personal level. I really didn't like how the characters talked in this, and I don't even care if it's historically accurate. I wasn't around in the 1840's to hear plantation owners or slaves communicate with one another, but to me, this sounded a whole lot like the voices of people who wrote in the first part of the 19th Century. There's a seasoned or stylized standard English here that just felt weird to me. But again, I don't really know what I'm talking about. One thing I did love was the music, some experimental textured stuff that I think must have been what Hans Zimmer provided mixed with the old folk and work songs from the era. The former helped capture the darkness while the latter helped the authenticity.

I almost feel like I'm being too hard, maybe because of the high expectations I had going in knowing that I was watching the best picture of 2013. Don't get me wrong. The movie's good, troubling and emotionally powerful, and this is a story or historical subject matter that, like the Holocaust, can't be told too many times.