12 Years a Slave - Outstanding

Clear the front pages, hold the press and take a deep breath - this year's first Michael Fassbender film is upon us.  Finally, even the Academy has felt the need to recognise the Irish actor by giving him a nomination for best supporting actor at this year's Oscars.  Sadly though it already looks like the bookies have written off his chances.  If he doesn't manage to win then it will be a shame, but the Fassbender will surely be back - for me he's this generation's Robert Deniro.

Clearly though, to suggest that 12 Years a Slave is a Michael Fassbender film would be to miss the point.  12 Years a Slave is only Steve McQueen's third feature film, but with it he has rocked the American film establishment with his uncompromising portrayal of industrialised slavery in the deep south of the USA in the mid 19th century.  The story is an adaptation of a memoir that was written by Solomon Northup in the 1850s about his decade-long ordeal of being kidnapped by slavers in Washington and being sold into slavery in the southern USA, where the practice was still legal.  Here Northup is played by East London's very own Chiwetel Ejiofor (pictured), and Fassbender plays the sadistic slave-owner Edwin Epps who owned Northup for the best part of 10 years at his cotton plantation in central Louisiana.  These two are supported by an outstanding cast that includes fellow Academy Award nominee Lupita Nyong'o - she plays fellow slave Patsey whom Epps sexually abuses - Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Giamatti, Brad Pitt and Sarah Paulson.

Northup was a free and educated man who lived in New York state in the 1840s.  He was kidnapped and sold to slavers where he endured 12 years of his life fearing that to tell anyone his true story would mean death.  This is not only the story of one man's nightmare, but the story of countless others who suffered the same fate without eventually finding their escape.  It's a film that's a history lesson, but it's also the most engaging and heartbreaking tale of suffering and loss.  It's a story about what people are capable of doing to others, and why we as a civilisation must never allow ourselves to forget that these things went on.

Some have levelled moderate criticised at the film for its lurid and unflinching depiction of violence and suffering.  A number of scenes stand out in this regard, scenes that either linger on suffering and goad the viewer into turning away, or that shock in their insistence on treating the horror of what's happening as if it were normality.  Of course at the time this stuff was happening all over the place, it was normal.  Slave owners really did whip slaves to death.  Groups of white men really did form lynch mobs and murder black men who's crime was to have no good reason for being somewhere.  That it took a British director to pay this much attention to the detail of slavery in the USA says something about the deep historical legacy the practice has left on the States.

For me, the film is fully justified in doing what it does, and it does it superbly.  The acting, the choice of locations, the ambience and feeling of terror you get from seeing Soloman Northup's life in the hands of sadistic slave-drivers; the film is outstanding in every way.  One scene, filmed without cuts, in which Epps forces Northup to whip Patsey before then whipping her himself is particularly hard to watch - but no less powerful for it.  Just a shame that the scene was somewhat spoilt in the cinema by one woman's insistence on tutting as if she were slightly irritated by what was going on.  Either cry out in anger or shut the hell up; no one wants to hear you make your noise of mild annoyance!

If there is any justice, then this should get showered with Oscars come March.  If it gets beaten in any category by anything from American Hustle it will be a complete travesty.  Don't be put off by the warnings of pain, suffering and violence, go and see 12 Years a Slave.