Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * * *

Cast: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong’o, Sarah Paulson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, Paul Dano, Adepero Oduye, Paul Giamatti, Garret Dillahunt, Scoot McNairy, Taran Killam, Chris Chalk, Michael K. Williams, Kelsey Scott, Alfre Woodward, Quvenzhane Wallis, Devyn A. Taylor, Cameron Zeigler, Rob Steinberg, Jay Huguley, Christopher Berry, Bryan Batt, Bill Camp, Dwight Henry, Ruth Negga.

There are moments in time when you are sat in the cinema when watching the film is just not enough. When the burning anger of injustice and the fear for humanity gets beneath the skin and burrows its way to your soul. From there all you are left with is the ability to weep, perhaps silently and with heavy heart or indeed openly and with the knowledge that you cannot change the past, nor to completely understand it as the past is a completely foreign country but to harbour the pain of what you see and somehow make sure that it is never allowed to happen again. Such is the power of 12 Years A Slave, such is the supremacy of Steve McQueen and such is the acting ability and brilliance, of Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender and Lupita Nyong’o.

Based on the true story of the black free man Solomon Northup, his kidnapping from Washington D.C. and his subsequent period of slavery and being traded like a piece of meat around several high placed personages in the South of a country that was on the verge of tearing itself apart, 12 Years A Slave is a film not to be missed. The way that Steve McQueen has captured and framed the unpleasant story, the shocking ruthless violence that befell the likes of Solomon Northup and the young slave girl Patsey, whose charms caught the far too eager eye of Edwin Epps, portrayed by Michael Fassbender, is not for the easily squeamish, the floggings and torture just at times too much for some, but should be looked upon as one of the great cinematic directions of all time.

For an actor as impressive as Chiwetal Ejiofor to portray a man whose life is ripped apart, whose soul is beaten savagely but who never once gives up hope is to confirm upon him as a true great of cinema also. Not once did he make his position in the film feel as if he was ever just an actor doing his job. This is a performance of man who felt every strap, every vile word and every sickening beating and made it believable, he made it real and that is all you can ever really hope an actor can achieve, the sense of being completely at one with the person they are portraying.

Yes the film is uncomfortable, at times brutally so, and more power to it because of that. The sense of injustice for all black Americans who were treated unfairly, wrongly, shamefully and in truth disgustingly at the hands of those who saw themselves as some sort of Master Race and whose chief source of law was the Bible, or their misguided interpretation of it should never be forgotten, never be allowed to wither in the passages of time and treated as if it didn’t happen.

However it is a film that should be highly praised for its portrayal of what led to the American Civil War, that Steve McQueen should be lauded for bringing the film together and in Chiwetal Ejiofor’s stunning work in a film that surely tested him time and time again. Brutally honest, chilling and upsetting, perhaps it might open a few closed eyes as well. 12 Years A Slave is a triumph of film-making.

Ian D. Hall