As some of you know, I am very behind on how many best picture winner I usually see before the Oscars air, but luckily one nominee that I've been anticipating for a while is back in theaters for film buffs like me to see. So here at last is my review for 12 Years A Slave.
Plot: Solomon Northup was a free man living in New York with his wife and children until two men drug him and sell him into slavery. Dispite his pleas to get home with his family, he is sold to William Ford who starts out in good terms with Northup until a problem occurs with one of his men that forces him to sell him to another man named Edwin Epps. Epps is a much crueler man who whips his slaves bare believing it to be his right. All the while Northup's hope begins to diminish on whether or not he will be rescued.
The description for this movie that seems to be commonly said is that it is apologetically and/or unflinchingly brutal. And that pretty much fits the bill. 12 Years A Slave not only tells a story about slavery and racism that we haven't quite heard before, but gives us a more harshly detailed view to it that we haven't experienced in film before. In a way, you could say that Django Unchained was a prologue for this movie, in that how it goes a little into some details such has how slave owners viewed their slaves specifically as their property. But this film goes so much more realistic then Django Unchained ever really was. The beatings, whippings, the different kinds of slave owners, even rape. This film hardly backs down on how visually realistic everything that was happening back then was. But just like Captain Phillips, a lot of what this film bring could not be possible without the fantastic work from the cast. Whether it was Chiwetel Ejofor, Benedict Cumberbatch, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong'o, even Brad Pitt surprisingly yet briefly enough, or whoever, the entire cast gave us so many big moments that really brought what was happening to the film. What also helps I began to realize was the editing, and how it had some scenes where they would hold a shot for a very long time such as when a woman was just looking up at the sky for 2-15-20 ish seconds before singing for a funeral or just a good half a minute of Northup thinking and looking around. At first I thought those moments seemed off to what was happening in the movie until I started to remember what I learned in film school about editing and how - for some editors, emotion is often the most important thing to capture when editing. So when I thought more about it, the more I began to realize that the editing really does the film credit even when it may take some time just holding a single shot of an actor just displaying all the emotion that their characters feels. Will this film win Best Editing? Maybe not. But thinking more about it, I can clearly see what makes it work so well that it has at least been nominated.
And that's my review for 12 Years A Slave. It's an exceptional film that goes deeper then before on racism and slavery back in the 19th century with an excellent cast and editing that is more brutal but realistic view then what we've seen in most films like it. Will it win Best Picture? It's not quite for me to say since this is the third nomination I've seen, but if anything, it looks like one of the stronger nominees that has the potential to win as far as I can tell.
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