Twelve Years A Slave

Down 'N Dirty: A tragic, captivating, gut-wrenching, and world-class film about slavery.

Big Names: Every single person in the film.

I'd like to start this out with a WARNING: This movie is absolutely not for the faint of heart. There are multiple scenes of gratuitous violence. These violent scenes are usually 1-part disturbing because of the realistic art, make-up, and animations; 2-parts disturbing because of the psychological damage that each character endures from being mercilessly abused by another person (treated as an "animal," if you look at it from their perspective) or mercilessly abusing others; and 3-parts disturbing because this film has been so excellently crafted that each member of the audience is forced into the view-point of enslavement. I say forced because that's what it is--you have no option but to understand why each character behaves as they do, and it is often times sickening. 

There is also a lot of hang time, or what some might call 'needlessly long shots,' for each scene in this film. This choice, made by a director who clearly knows what they are doing, allows the audience to really get to think about what they are witnessing; the audience is there before the atrocities happen and must stay there afterwards to live through them, resulting in beautiful cinematography that is both purposeful and artistic. The sun is only shown behind a barricade of tree branches, which is a symbol of captivity from the light and freedom our main character has already known. Certain songs last longer than others because they carry more weight with what is visually happening on the screen, or are perhaps cut short/mid frame to heighten a drastic shift in mood. There are close ups to emphasize certain details when needed and long-range shots used to put the smaller events into the larger perspectives when needed. Again, each of the stylistic techniques used are much more than "trying to be artsy," they all convey meaning and contribute to the audience's subconscious reactions and emotions throughout the film. 

After beginning this review with words that might deter people away from viewing it, I now challenge all of you to see this film. I have never seen a slave-related anything that was so powerful. This is the best movie I've seen in years. It is the second time in my entire life that the final credits started rolling and I could not get out of my seat; I just sat there and thought about everything I had just witnessed--me and my buddy cannot stop talking about it and it's been three days since we saw it now.

More than anything else, this is a very important movie to see. And, honestly, it is important for white people to see. I think this movie does a good job at helping anybody of any color understand why racial tensions are still high... it shows how this sort of thing gets passed down from generation to generation to generation and cannot be forgotten over time because it must not be forgotten over time. Slavery is not something that's worth pretending never happened. This was our country's Holocaust, possibly even worse. Everyone should see this film and whoever does so will be a better human being for it. Even if you don't think about it ever again--if it get's lost in the back of your brain until the day you die--this movie will still be in the back of your brain because it will have an effect on you; the sort of effect that will make you want to hold the door open for someone else or start a conversation the next time you're in an elevator. It unifies man-kind; through these despicable actions of hatred, the audience sees how similar we all are.

On top of all that, this movie made me feel like a dumb-ass for enjoying Tarantino's "Django Unchained" that came out last year. This movie also made Tarantino look like a five year old with too much money. "Twelve Years A Slave" will force you to remember that slavery was not cool, or funny, or a great time, or something that people need to lighten up about. Slavery was absolutely horrible. It is not an action comedy. 

I could write about this movie all night, but I'd like to finish this post by saying this movie is absolutely fantastic despite it's content matter. Slavery is a subject that invokes a multitude of different emotions in each and every one of us, and any subject matter that can do that makes for a great background in any dramatic narrative. Every film-related aspect of "Twelve Years A Slave" was top-notch. The acting was phenomenal, the script was phenomenal, the camerawork was phenomenal, and that all means that the directing was too. There will be many Oscar nods in this movie's direction in the near future.

Brace yourselves before you leave home, and then go see this movie.