I really wanted to see this film and had very high expectations for it. It was set in the early to mid-1800s and was about a free black man who was kidnapped and sold into slavery, for 12 years. Exactly how he was kidnapped was left a little bit to the imagination. All we find out is he was having dinner one night and the next night he woke up in shackles. The man’s name was ‘Soloman‘ and of course, he was educated and could read and write, something that most slaves could not do. This film had several cameos from ‘A’ listers including Paul Giamatti, Paul Dano, Alfre Woodard, and Brad Pitt. Of these cameos, my favorite actor is Paul Dano, and in his part, he played a disgusting character who infuriates Soloman so much, that he literally goes to blows with him. The main actors were Chiwetel Ejiofor, who played Soloman, Michael Fassbender, who played Massa Epps, Sara Paulson, who played Mistress Epps, and Lupita Nyong’o, who played the tragic slave Patsey.
It’s interesting that this film was directed by Steve Mcqueen, and I just watched Bullitt, a film who’s lead actor’s name is Steve Mcqueen, no relation, I know. His directing style for me was sort of bothersome. I really don’t need to have the camera staring at someone’s face for 30 seconds to get the point. Also, there was a scene where Solomon was being hanged but was holding himself up by this tiptoes. The camera stayed with the scene far too long for my comfort. Although I understand the point he was making. While hanging, in the background the other slaves are going about their normal lives, kids playing as if this is not that unusual.
Michael Fassbender who played Massa Epps was very good in this. He was very brutal and treated his slaves in many cases worse than you would treat an animal. At one point he said they were not people, they were his property and he compared them to Baboons. He was also regularly raping female slaves. He would whip the slaves who had the worst performance in the cotton fields.
I think the film did a good job of portraying the plight and hopelessness of the slaves. At the same time, I don’t know if it did enough. Even though it did the best it could, I have to assume the real-life events were much worse than this. I couldn’t help thinking that I would have seriously considered making a run for it, had I been in a similar situation. Having just watched “The Way Back“, a gripping story about how a group of people escaped from Nazi-occupied Poland, traveling on foot all the way to India, some 4000 miles. It seemed traveling from Louisiana back to Washington D.C. would have been a cakewalk. The main problem with this concept is, the route he would have had to take, was full of racist southerners, who would have captured him along the way, maybe even lynched him.
Solomon was eventually able to gain his freedom by convincing Brad Pitt’s character to mail a letter off to someone that could prove he was a free man. When he goes back home, he finds his kids are grown, and he has a grandchild. The reunion to me was a little bit anticlimactic. There was really not that much of a reaction from his family. I was thinking they would have been much more excited, especially the wife. The film credits start to roll after this, where it explains how Solomon went after (unsuccessfully) those that had wronged him, and how he later went on to write the book.
This was a very good film, worthy of five stars, but I somehow think it could have had more of an emotional impact. I am now very interested in checking out the book, to see how close the film came to recreating the events outlined.
*****
