Viewed in
2013
Formats
Movie theater.
Premise
Based on the novel, Chiwetel Ejiofor stars as a pre-U.S. Civil War free black man kidnapped and made a slave in Georgia.
Loved
Ejiofor and Michael Fassbender's performances, unforgettable lynching scenes.
Liked
Almost everything else.
Disliked
Distracting score.
Thoughts
As an ideal Oscar bait movie, this was excellent and emotionally powerful.
Ejiofor had the extreme difficulty of playing a physically demanding role that was actually very passive and unflashy. One would think playing the victim to such a blatant crime against humanity would be obviously easy, but he made his character extremely sympathetic and root-worthy, especially through his eyes and body language.
Meanwhile, Fassbender got the juicy stuff. He was irresistibly fascinating as Ejiofor's main owner, a quirky, righteous, racist contradiction of a man. While I was entranced by Fassbender, unknown Lupita Nyong’o stole the show as the alpha slave, hellbent on outperforming everyone else. Both characters brought different, complex, unpredictable threats to our hero's life.
And boy, the life-threatening stakes were on high at all times. It was one thing to learn about slavery in textbooks, it was another thing to see the brutality and inhumanity portrayed with no sugarcoating. The criticism that the whipping and other scenes of violence were a bit indulgent and lingered too long was valid. But director Steve McQueen's direction worked wonders, pushing your discomfort almost to the point of breaking, but without compelling you to look away.
What really came across was the shear fragility of a black person's life in those dark times. Both lynching scenes were haunting and affecting, the ultimate illustration of just how powerless and hopeless these people must've felt. Artistically, these were the most memorable, and my favorite, scenes.
All of this added to an incredibly emotional payoff that I hadn't experienced in a while.
Two nitpicks. I didn't quite understand Alfre Woodard's character, or her character's purpose. But the bigger issue was Hans Zimmer's score. The subject and performances were powerful enough to do the heavy lifting, and his recognizable music was distracting.
I found it fascinating that Jason Whitlock, a black writer, hated this film. His criticism "we were fed a movie designed to make white people introspective and socially conscious. We are more worried about their salvation than our own." was interesting and fair. I understood why he'd rather we celebrate movies about black heroes over black victims. But I still believe movies like this contribute to helping race relations in America by reminding us of our nation's dark past, and not merely exploiting "white man's guilt" either.
I can see why 12 Years a Slave deserved to be the Oscar frontrunner, and not just for cynical Academy-checklist reasons. It had great haunting directing and acting that will resonant with me for a long time.
