IronWatcher’s review published on Letterboxd:
Watched on Blu-Ray
Steve McQueen and Peter Farrelly are two men who have the common ground of having won an Oscar for Best Film for a film they made about racism in America. If someone has seen neither one nor the other film, that person might wonder whether both have the authority to make a film about such a difficult subject at all. Farrelly is American though, but an older white dude. McQueen is black, but British.
The difference between the two is that while Farrelly has shot a sympathetic, but also very calculatedly naive feel-good fairy tale and thus played down the racism portrayed, McQueen shows in his authentic drama the cruelties the black slaves had to endure in a cruel intensity and closeness I never witnessed before.
In beautiful, long shots, which almost counteract the horrors shown, the true story of the black violinist Solomon Northup is told, who was kidnapped in the 19th century and had to work as a slave for different "masters" for 12 years. This proud man's fierce battle is always told by McQueen in an emotionally stirring way, with an incomparable sense of detail.
Especially torturous is the casualness with which the violence happens. The flogging scene of Lupita Nyong'o and the subsequent treatment of the wounds are among the most intolerable scenes I have ever seen on celluloid. I can still remember sitting in the cinema in 2014 and two rows in front of me sitting a couple of parents with their son, who couldn't have been older than 10. In Germany it is the case that children from the age of 6 accompanied by a parent are also allowed to watch films from the age of 12. 12 Years A Slave is released from the age of 12, but I wondered beforehand what kind of parents these are who go into such a tough film with their child. They, too, had obviously underestimated the intensity of the film, because the boy started crying bitterly during that scene. The father left the hall with him and didn't come back. The mother kept watching. Well...I mean, Michael Fassbender was so good that I loved to hate his character.
Lupita Nyong'o rightly received the Oscar for her grandiose performance.
The fact that at no time in the film is shown how much time has passed underlines how endless Solomon's life as a slave seems to him.
With the exception of the strange cameo by Brad Pitt, the film is absolute perfection and one of the best films on the subject of racism.
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