12 Years a Slave (2013)
Country: US/GB
Technical: col/2.35:1 134m
Director: Steve McQueen
Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Lupita Nyong'o, Brad Pitt
Synopsis:
Saratoga, 1841: an educated black family man is hoodwinked and sold into slavery in the South, where he works for a series of masters, including the brutalising Mr Epps. All the while he keeps secret his literacy, in the hope one day of conveying word of his situation to the outside world.
Review:
Based on a true story, McQueen's film, coming on the back of Hunger and Shame as it does, has no need to tout itself as the slave film to end all slave films: its cast and pedigree do that for it. What it also delivers, as if piqued by Tarantino's frivolous deployment of similar staples in Django Unchained, is a restrained narrative pace and sober emotional register, lulling its audience early on into a false sense of security, as we half suspect a special privilege will befall this talented engineer-slave, like Joseph in the book of Genesis. No Spielbergian shock dosage of violent tableaux, this, but a steady and introverted accumulation of near misses, taking the time to hold a shot for a length of time that just seems to say 'Consider this'. At the end one is in no doubt as to the finesse involved, but one is unlikely to feel any differently towards slavery, either.
Country: US/GB
Technical: col/2.35:1 134m
Director: Steve McQueen
Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Lupita Nyong'o, Brad Pitt
Synopsis:
Saratoga, 1841: an educated black family man is hoodwinked and sold into slavery in the South, where he works for a series of masters, including the brutalising Mr Epps. All the while he keeps secret his literacy, in the hope one day of conveying word of his situation to the outside world.
Review:
Based on a true story, McQueen's film, coming on the back of Hunger and Shame as it does, has no need to tout itself as the slave film to end all slave films: its cast and pedigree do that for it. What it also delivers, as if piqued by Tarantino's frivolous deployment of similar staples in Django Unchained, is a restrained narrative pace and sober emotional register, lulling its audience early on into a false sense of security, as we half suspect a special privilege will befall this talented engineer-slave, like Joseph in the book of Genesis. No Spielbergian shock dosage of violent tableaux, this, but a steady and introverted accumulation of near misses, taking the time to hold a shot for a length of time that just seems to say 'Consider this'. At the end one is in no doubt as to the finesse involved, but one is unlikely to feel any differently towards slavery, either.
Country: US/GB
Technical: col/2.35:1 134m
Director: Steve McQueen
Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Lupita Nyong'o, Brad Pitt
Synopsis:
Saratoga, 1841: an educated black family man is hoodwinked and sold into slavery in the South, where he works for a series of masters, including the brutalising Mr Epps. All the while he keeps secret his literacy, in the hope one day of conveying word of his situation to the outside world.
Review:
Based on a true story, McQueen's film, coming on the back of Hunger and Shame as it does, has no need to tout itself as the slave film to end all slave films: its cast and pedigree do that for it. What it also delivers, as if piqued by Tarantino's frivolous deployment of similar staples in Django Unchained, is a restrained narrative pace and sober emotional register, lulling its audience early on into a false sense of security, as we half suspect a special privilege will befall this talented engineer-slave, like Joseph in the book of Genesis. No Spielbergian shock dosage of violent tableaux, this, but a steady and introverted accumulation of near misses, taking the time to hold a shot for a length of time that just seems to say 'Consider this'. At the end one is in no doubt as to the finesse involved, but one is unlikely to feel any differently towards slavery, either.