Nothing Is What It Seems

McQueen’s visceral and unrelenting peek at slavery’s horrors in the deep, muddy swamps of Louisiana during the 1850s leading up to the Civil War was as grueling and tormenting an experience as Spielberg’s SCHINDLER’S LIST (1993) or even Gibson’s THE PASSION OF THE CHRIST (2004), as haunting and breathless as Resnais’s HIROSHIMA, MON AMOUR (1959).

What was, perhaps, most unique about 12 YEARS A SLAVE–considering the list of films dealing with American slavery both past and present (I’m thinking AMISTAD (1997) and GLORY (1989) and LINCOLN (2012) and even THE HELP (2011), all very glossy in the depiction of the brutalities of slavery)–was the way in which McQueen depicted not only the literal segregation between white and black, but the segregation among educated slaves and the illiterate ones, the ones who were not born into “freedom.” In a shockingly beautiful scene of twisted-justice and irony, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) must stand on his tip-toes with a noose around his neck for hours and hours into the evening. Why? For a justified “crime” against a loose and arrogant overseer (Paul Dano). Solomon must wait for his master Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch) to cut him free. What punctuates Solomon’s struggle? The fact that his fellow slaves do not even dare help him in his time of need, even though Solomon struggles to keep the noose from cutting off every sweet breath; the other slaves simply go about their daily routines on the plantation. Yes, eventually one woman brings Solomon water, but that is all that is offered.

Not everything is black and white is McQueen’s point, and a good point to make in a film that deals with slavery as realistically brutal and inhuman as I’ve ever seen before.