Film Review - 12 Years a Slave

Curzon Mayfair, 14/1/2014
Steve McQueen returns to the big screen with this charged affair based on the memoirs of Solomon Northup, a black man born free in the northern states, who is abducted to the south and illegally sold into slavery. Chiwetel Ejiofor plays Northup, and the film follows him through the 12 years of his ordeal until he is released.

I am not going to make many friends by saying this, but though this is an important film due to its subject matter, I don't think it is remarkable as a film. Aside from the first ten minutes and the very last scene, which set the context for Northup's story, the rest of the film is a pretty generic depiction of slavery, tells us nothing new, and is largely irrelevant to the story. Northup's reluctance to reveal his legal status as a free man, for his own survival, and thus his true self, means that he has little genuine interaction with the other characters. The story is thus reduced to a series of episodes that do not develop either his character or the storyline, until the moment when the sympathetic Bass (Brad Pitt) comes along and agrees to help him. There is no sense at all of the twelve years passing, or of Northup developing any new insight or thoughts on his predicament or the wider question of slavery. If not for the clue in the title, this could have just as easily been six months a slave, for all that we see. The substance of the film is reduced to its depiction of the horrors and brutality of slavery, something I feel was portrayed at least as well in Django Unchained, to quote a recent if less serious example, and is just saying 'isn't it awful?'. In fairness, McQueen does innovate by acknowledging a degree of complexity in the culpability of some of those 'caught up' in slave ownership, such as Benedict Cumberbatch's sympathetic landowner Ford.

Ignoring the issue of substance, this is a beautifully shot film, as you would expect from McQueen. There is less use of the signature sense of detachment from use of medium range stationary camera angles than might be expected from previous films, with most of the action taking place outdoors. The south has rarely looked as sumptuous. The standout scene shows a prolonged near-hanging of Northup, as life goes on around him, and children playing nearby indifferent to his suffering. Ejiofor is outstanding, and indeed has to be to carry the film, as his aforementioned reticence about his situation limits his interactions and dialogue with the other characters. McQueen's long takes are very demanding of his ability to convey Northup's state of mind through subtle changes in his facial expression, and he rises to the occasion. Michael Fassbender as the sadistic Epps provides a counterexample at the brasher end of the scale, but is no less accomplished. Lupita Nyong'o also shines as Northup's fellow slave Patsie.

In the end this is an important work as one of few serious mainstream films that tackle slavery in America, and it will and should be widely seen. It is to its credit that it doesn't offer easy judgements. For instance Northup's outrage isn't obviously about the injustice of slavery, but about him being legally a free man who is abducted into slavery. The real Northup apparently went on to campaign for civil rights, but this is not covered in the film. Ultimately it is a nicely made depiction of episodes of barbaric cruelty and injustice bookended by 15 minutes of story, and says nothing on the subject that hasn't been said elsewhere. Not McQueen's best. 3.5/5

Top films of 2013

Beautiful things don't ask for attention (Sean O'Connell, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. Still from The Great Beauty).

Here we are then, time to review the year in cinema. Somewhat embarrassingly, none of my top films have been reviewed in the blog. As a new reviewer with no background in the arts I find the better works much more difficult to review, and I find I am still reflecting on them when I would otherwise be writing. To rise above such challenges is a raison d'etre of this blog, and thus the blog's new year resolution is to do better and review more of what I see, especially the better films. These were my top films of 2013.


1. The Great Beauty. Sorrentino expresses a great love for present day Rome and la dolce vita (the lifestyle not the film, even though there are obvious parallels), while gleefully pointing out the emptiness and lack of purpose as Jep Gambardella searches for meaning towards the end of his writing career. From the opening party scene the audience is seduced into a life of parties and an appreciation of the finest and most beautiful that Rome has to offer. Gambardella's existential angst is conveyed in conversations with his pretentious circle, and his relationship with his neighbour, who overlooks his rooftop terrace next to the Colosseum. Every shot in this film is a beautifully composed piece of visual art in its own right, and Toni Servillo is pitch perfect as Gambardella. This is art cinema at its most flamboyant and seductive.

2. Blue is the Warmest Colour. By contrast Blue is the Warmest Colour is unflinchingly intimate, a close examination of a love affair between two young women. The much written about sex scenes are explicit and drawn out, but do function to immerse the audience in the intensity of the affair and pace of the film. Director Abdellatif Kechiche and the two leads Léa Seydoux and Adèle Exarchopoulos have created a remarkable piece that while it tips its hat to homophobia, class differences, and snobbery in the arts, is all about the passion of the love affair.

3. The Act of Killing. Joshua Oppenheimer's documentary focuses on the mass killings perpetrated against alleged communist sympathisers in Indonesia in the 1960s and 1970s. Oppenheimer follows Anwar Congo, a self-styled gangster and movie buff who led a gang of paramilitaries. These killers are at large and unrepentant, and are now represented by the Pancasila Youth organisation, which somehow still enjoys mainstream and government support, while its members extort with impunity. Congo and his associates as well as describing their actions, are invited to reconstruct some of the atrocities they carried out, sometimes with relatives of the actual victims. Some, like Congo, begin to realise what they have done, how it looks, and how it has affected people. Others seem to remain oblivious. Somehow Oppenheimer and his collaborators, many of whom remain anonymous for fear of reprisals, refrain from judging their subjects and allow them to come to their own realisations and condemn themselves by their own words and actions. The Act of Killing is a remarkable document of a brutal regime that is still influential, if not actually in power, contains many unforgettable scenes - some of the reconstructions are amazing, and a still charismatic lead subject in Anwar Congo.

4. Here Be Dragons. Mark Cousins' essay film was recorded in Albania in five days for a budget of £10,000 using a Panasonic HX-DC2. The trip was sponsored by the Albanian film institute in an effort to raise funds and awareness to preserve their decaying film archives. Cousins films as he travels through Albania, returning many times to a mysterious pyramid in Tirana. The narrative spins out from these starting points and considers questions of collective memory and identity, touching on landmarks in Albanian film history, but always coming back to the impact of the ostensibly communist former dictator Enver Hoxha in impoverishing the country. The centrepiece of the film is a letter addressed to Enver by Cousins that is accompanied by a long uninterrupted single take that addresses the impact of greed on Albania and on society in general. This is powerful and inspirational stuff, and shows that individuals can still make an impactful statement in these days of massive collaborative blockbusters.

5. The Secret Life of Walter Mitty. A paean to imagination, a longing for the days of analogue, slow living and prioritising the quality of work above profit. What's not to like in this feelgood light comedy? Ben Stiller directs and stars as Walter, a daydreaming photo stockist at Life magazine who gets drawn into a global adventure in pursuit of the negative for the cover of the last ever issue of the magazine. Kirsten Wiig plays Cheryl, the romantic interest, and Sean Penn shines in the few minutes he has as the photographer Sean O'Connell. We switch frequently from reality to Walter's imagination in the first half of the film, and in some cases we are left guessing as to which it is we are watching. However, when Walter decides to track down O'Connell he has to make several decision (red car or blue car? a Matrix reference!) that lead to him having real adventures. The film is funny, uplifting and life-affirming and the cinematography, particularly the location shots in Iceland, is beautiful. It also has two of the most memorable scenes I can remember from this year, Cheryl and Walter's Space Oddity helicopter scene and the skateboarding scene.

Honorable mentions for this year go to Only God Forgives - stylish, comic book violence, Ryan Gosling and one of the great screen villains, Carancho - pitch black drama from Argentina, and Borgman - a surreal Danish-Dutch psychological thriller.

Happy 2014!