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Prior
to his kidnap and the horrors that follow, Solomon is a well-to-do husband and
father in Saratoga, New York. He is an
educated man earning his living as a musician.
Having been born free in the North, slavery has never touched his life
directly, and he does his best to ignore the signs of it pressing up against
the edges of his world. His life is
shattered, however, when he’s stolen from his family and sold as chattel. For the next twelve brutal years of his life,
Solomon is a commodity to be used, traded, and tortured. His various owners and overseers tear at his
dignity, and Solomon does what he must in order to survive and eventually regain
his freedom.
Understandably,
it’s a difficult film to watch, but it fires on all cylinders right out of the
gate. The direction and writing are
somehow both highly emotional and starkly unsentimental; whether Solomon is
enraged, despairing, terrified, or battered down, these feelings are etched
plainly across the screen. However, the
atrocities committed on the plantations are filmed with a dispassionate
nonchalance that serves to highlight their horror, because it shows are
commonplace and day-to-day beatings, rapes, and lynchings were in the
antebellum South.
I’ve
liked Chiwetel Ejiofor since I saw him in Dirty
Pretty Things, and he won my allegiance forever for his excellent work as
the Operative in Serenity. He’s jaw-drop stunning here; he carries the
film through the nightmare of his enslaved life, and his eyes speak
volumes. A number of other fine actors
give strong performances – Quvenzhané Wallis (Hushpuppy from Beasts of the Southern Wild,) Paul
Giamatti, Benedict Cumberbatch, Paul Dano, Michael Fassbender, Sarah Paulson, and Brad
Pitt are all featured – but it’s Ejiofor’s film hands-down. His performance in the final scene left me reeling.
Truly stellar.
(Oh,
and since I mentioned the assorted well-known white actors in the movie, I just
have to say – I can’t imagine how
difficult it must be to play these sorts of roles. Obviously, the black actors have a
tremendously hard job as well, but it must feel sickening to deliver those awful lines, to let the N-word roll off
one’s tongue, and to convincingly portray such inhuman attitudes. It’s a tough issue, because it’s a powerful
story that’s important to be told, but if I were one of them, especially Sarah
Paulson or Michael Fassbender, I don’t think I physically could have done it.)
Though
I alluded to it above, I’ve not really touched on the way the film addresses
the psychological implications of slavery.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie deal so closely with the complexities
of this issue. It’s a big topic, though,
and I’ve already rambled quite a bit.
Check in tomorrow, when I’ll focus on these aspects of the film.
Warnings
Violence,
including vicious beatings, attempted murder, and sexual assault. Also, nudity, racial slurs, and horrifically
racist viewpoints.
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