12 Years a Slave: A Review

Before the screening for this film began, I ordered a large glass of wine from the bar. I wanted to numb myself. I had not watched any trailers for Steve McQueen’s latest film, or read Solomon Northup’s memoir of his experiences as an abducted slave. Regardless before having seen a single frame, I was already experiencing a strong sense of foreboding.

McQueen has proven himself to be a film-maker who both is fearless in his subject matter – the deprivation of the Northern Irish political detainees in Hunger is unforgettable – but also fully aware of how film can confront the audience. The topic of slavery within Hollywood has previously been treated as an unfortunate event in history – and so depicted in disaffected fashion as a curio; as a sadistic standby in exploitation cinema; or most famously, entirely justified as in the work of D.W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation.

McQueen is not interested in such segues or historical sleight-of-hand. 12 Years a Slave opens with Chiwetel Ejiofor standing among a group of slaves, men and young boys, staring at the camera dejectedly. It is a confronting opening shot, but it also immediately places the audience in that moment. The ambient sound of the cornfield, the buzzing of insects and this silent group, waiting to be told what to do, completely bereft of agency, all combine together to deliberate effect.

The story skips back in time, introducing Ejiofor’s Solomon as a family man making a comfortable living as an entertainer. He dresses in the clothing of the New York middle class and draws the envious gazes of born slaves, who are baffled by his freedom and equality with his white peers. Solomon is approached by two men who offer him a short profitable job in Washington. During his travels with them, he is drugged and wakes to find himself pressed into a slaver’s ship bound human cargo. There he is stripped of his clothes and name – he learns quickly that any protest about his true identity can lead to his death.

The sudden reversal of Solomon’s fate is a sharp shock, again designed to force a sense of empathy on a modern audience. In addition the shrill violins of Hans Zimmer’s score – acting as a chorus, given Solomon’s own gifts as a violinist – evoke the desperation and pain of these victims of callous slavers.

Sold initially to the morally troubled, but weak-willed William Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch) Solomon tries to makes himself useful, in the hope that his evident skill at carpentry will allow him to convince his owner that he is more valuable as a free man. His plan fails disastrously and he is passed on to Edwin Epps, played by frequent McQueen collaborator Michael Fassbender. Trapped by an unpredictable, brutal sadist, his dreams of escape are slowly ground into dust.

What impresses most is how the torture and abuse of the slaves is not depicted in a sensationalistic fashion, its everydayness making it doubly disturbing to watch unfold. Epps orders slaves who fail to meet a daily quota for cotton picking be whipped, of which there are glimpses in long shots. McQueen also avoids the trope of 12 Years… being a story of redemption for his male protagonist. Solomon instead is forced to witness the suffering of women in particular, an aspect of American slavery that has been sidelined in previous films set during this period.

Cumberbatch’s performance shows what he is capable of when given the chance to escape from Tumblr. Fassbender is simply terrifying, a ball of rage liable to explode at any moment. One tension-filled scene between Epps and Solomon in the dead of night is an acting masterclass.

However, it is the women on screen that impress the most. The magnetic Lupita Nyong'o gives Fassbender a run for his money during their moments together and the grief of Adepero Oduye’s Eliza at the loss of her children is heartrending. Sarah Paulson plays the wife of Epps and essays another rarity in the film subgenre of slavery pictures, a white woman devoid of any sympathy towards the slaves on her property, actively abusing Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o). Ultimately the plot movements of this film are set in motion by the actions of the women, not the men, with Solomon an especially passive observer.

McQueen has delivered an inspired piece of film that refuses to settle into received ideas of how slavery should be depicted. This is a thoroughly modern and innovative picture, emotionally devastating, but invigorating thanks to directorial technique and the commitment of its cast.

12 Years a Slave is in cinemas from tomorrow - 30 January.

-Emmet O'Cuana