12 Years a Slave Review

The story begins with Solomon living with wife and children in New York as a free man and respected member of his community. After being lured to Washington by a couple of con-artists who promised him work, he was subsequently drugged, locked in chains, viciously beaten, stripped of his identity and shipped to New Orleans to be sold into slavery. Over the next twelve years, he was owned by two men who treated him in contrasting ways. The first was relatively civilized, but the plantation's half-witted manager was threatened by Northup's superior intelligence. Their mutual dislike produced a dangerously volatile situation where we see Solomon moments away from being lynched. This scene is perhaps one of the most powerful, as a continual shot it leaves the audience uncomfortable as Solomon struggles in the mud on his tip-toes to keep his balance with the  noose still around his neck while other slaves continue on in the background, unable to help. Unwilling to lose his investment, Northup's owner re-sold him to a neighbour. This unbalanced individual regarded his slaves as property to be used for pleasure and profit, which caused them to live in perpetual fear that his capricious moods would flare into sadistic lust or rage at any moment. He often punishes his slaves, with his worst behaviour reserved for his 'favourite' slave Patsey, regularly raping and beating her. This leads to his wife's increasingly hostility for her through jealousy, culminating in her throwing a glass bottle at her head and encouraging her husband to beat her until her flesh is exposed; all for borrowing a bar of soap. The slave owner even gets Solomon to take part in the whipping of Patsey.This shows how no remorse is shown to people considered nothing but property.

 Their dramatisation of Northup's experiences is both powerful and uncomfortable to watch, as the film depicts the perverse nature of a society that permitted such a barbaric system and successfully manages to show how a privileged Southern elite cruelly exploited their fellow humans in order to acquire greater wealth for themselves.

The film does often rely on shock tactics to keep the story moving and does not delve particularly deeply into the psychological side of how slavery effected both the slaves and the slave owners. These factors are shown however in the scenes where Solomon carves his wife and children's names into the side of his violin only to smash in later on, or the despair when he is almost found out for trying to get a letter sent up north with the help of a White man who ultimately double crosses him. Another powerful scene is where a fellow slave is buried, while the slaves sing, a close-up of Solomon's face reveals his impending realisation that unless someone saves him his fate is to die as a a slave- the fate of so many black people in the South at this time.