12 Years a Slave

In this stark and boldly oppressive tale, the only thing perhaps more harrowing than the protagonist's journey to survive false enslavement and torture is director Steve McQueen's brazen way of depicting it in the most honest and, quite often, deeply uncomfortable, yet cinematically applaudable manner.

12 Years a Slave is based on the memoir of the same title by Solomon Northup - an African American, living in New York, who was born free, kidnapped, sold into slavery, and kept in bondage for 12 years in the antebellum South.

In the film, Solomon (Chiwetel Ejiofor), a talented violinist, is hoaxed by two men claiming to be searching for musicians, who escort him to dinner and take advantage of him in his inebriated state. Solomon wakes up chained to a wall and told that he is no longer a free man. The rest of the film follows his journey working under the ownership of different slave-holders for the next 12 years of his life.

Solomon's survival is fueled by his desire to reunite with his wife and two children in New York but is tested by his own intelligence and often fool-hardiness. Solomon is an intelligent man, who has to hide his literacy from each master. At times, his intelligence gets the best of him and challenges a vapid-minded white man for faulty instructions -- this scene is cheer-inducing in the short run, but breath-holding-ly painful in the long run.

McQueen (Shame, Hunger) is not shy with his depictions of slavery; Beatings, whippings, rapes, hangings and other tortures are shown explicitly and unapologetically. Like Shame and Hunger, McQueen employs the long-take to capture such heinous acts in the most realistic and uncomfortable manner. There's nothing docile or, in the opposite extreme, overtly-gratuitous for the sake of it in these scenes -- they just...are.

McQueen's camera is often poetic, even ironic, capturing the enticingly open Louisiana sky. In one scene, Ejiofor breaks the fourth wall, by looking at the camera in a slow sweeping gaze - Ejiofor's haunting and pleading eyes gaze at us for a few seconds, before looking off camera again. This is similar to a scene in McQueen's Shame, where his sex-addict protagonist stares at the camera during an unemotional three-some. It's heartbreaking.

The film lacks on exposition and characterization in the beginning. We only see a few scenes of Solomon with his family, before he is surreptitiously whisked away. That's expected, though, with a film encompassing a long narrative time frame. Solomon's sorrow and bereavement, however, are not lost on us, which is the crucial part.

What is astounding, however, are the gritty performances. Ejiofor has a solemn and serious disposition, disrupted by weighty outbursts. He is completely vulnerable - physically and emotionally. By the end of the film, he appears as a man who's been through Hell and back, but maybe that's his settlement. "I don't want to survive," he states. "I want to live."

Paul Dano plays Tibeats, a hot-headed slave driver who has it out for Solomon and sings a deplorably nasty song (that I hope doesn't catch on). Tibeats' volatile and creepy persona draw comparisons to Dano's performance in There Will Be Blood, where he played a God zealot with greedy intentions. Here, Dano's portrayal of such an abominable character is superb. Somehow, we've come to love to hate him.

Among the many wonderful performances, none come close to Michael Fassbender's portrayal of Edwin Epps, a cotton plantation owner and a drunk who takes joy in waking his slaves in the middle of the night and making them dance, tiredly, in his lavish Southern home. Fassbender's magnetic off-screen charm is completely lost here. Epps is a deranged man with little self control and his uneasy physical proxemics to his slaves make him all the more creepy.

Unfortunately the soundtrack is not as memorable. Hans Zimmer's score is, in the moment, potent but tragically forgettable thereafter. At best, it appropriately ornates the story without overpowering it. Sometimes the most powerful scenes are ones accompanied by deafening silence, because they're usually a cacophony of emotions.

At its worst, the film is long and depressing. At its best, it's emotional and unnerving. There's little sense of resolution or cause for joy at the end. There's nothing uplifting about this film but that's the point, isn't it? The melancholic ending demonstrates that there is little to erase the tragedies that have occurred.

There's no forgetting this film either. Each scene is like sipping a cold pint of Southern-brewed sobriety. By the end, we're intoxicated with our country's shameful history.

Rating: A

Fassbender's Oscar snub is a shame

The taboo subject of sex addiction has been explored several times in the past, i.e. Showtime's Californication, American Psycho or the 2005 documentary I Am a Sex Addict, all of which portrayed it in a light-hearted manner. Shame is different. It's not a pretentious P.S.A. style narrative about the obvious hazards of addiction, nor does it intend to fully dissect or define sexual addiction. It explores something much deeper. It intends to portray one man's negative path of shattered emotional disconnection through his vices.

Much like in American Psycho, Brandon (Michael Fassbender) is a businessman living in New York, wearing the facade of a normal 30-something-year-old, but concealing some serious peccadilloes (minus the murdering thing). He has good self-control, able to work steadily during the day and release his demons (no pun intended) in a seedy night club, or sometimes even at work. He occasionally comes across a few slip-ups (ever hear of a USB drive?), but nothing he can't smooth talk his way out of. That is until his sister Sissy (Carey Mulligan) temporarily crashes in his apartment. Both share an awkward and apparent distant connection. They're both broken internally, but as much as she tries to reconnect with her brother, Brandon pushes away because it's obvious they share the same dark and concealed past that led him to his current state.

It's not a film about sex addiction, Brandon's addiction is the result of some past trauma the audience is left in the dark about. To say his character has relationship issues is an understatement, his emotion-void sexcapades--which there are plenty of--are testament to that. And in case you heard George Clooney's comment about Fassbender at the Golden Globes--he wasn't kidding. But I digress. As devoid Fassbender is of emotions in his racier scenes, he is able to produce some emotionally-packed scenes and one of the best performances of 2011, without a doubt.

Written and directed by Steve McQueen (not the one you're thinking of), he wastes little space in his film to get his point across. New York City was the perfect setting. A dimly lit restaurant, a shady downtown sidewalk and dark bars add the notion of an unclear mindset, a dark past Brandon is suppressing, waiting to re-submerge into light. But McQueen is technically savvy here, he shows us little of Brandon's past, only in emotional breakdowns and close-ups of his facial expressions. We know nothing about how Brandon came to be how he is, but as long as we watch for McQueen's technical cues, there's little need. In one scene Mulligan's character sings an original song. We don't need a thorough background, we deduct from the lyrics more-or-less what's happened. These scenes can stretch for a few minutes, but they perfectly execute the point.

Mulligan, known for her smaller independent roles, hasn't failed to impress yet. However, as fearless as her performance was, it lays in the intentionally dark shadows of Fassbender's performance.

 Harry Escott adds a hauntingly poignant score, appropriate to the film's theme.

It is a true shame some prestigious film institutions could not recognize an amazing performance from Fassbender, perhaps it was the taboo theme or the NC-17 rating? Either way, all I have to say is: Fuck you Academy!

Raing: A