Accenture Gala screening - short review - 12 YEARS A SLAVE by Steve McQueen

The story starts in 1841 in New York, where violinist Solomon Northup lives with his family as a free black man. However, after a night of drinking during the course of a touring gig, he awakens chained, kidnapped into slavery and sent to a cotton plantation in the American South. What follows is a painful realistic brutality of one of the most shameful skeletons in America’s closet. Based on Northup’s own memoirs, McQueen once again steps up to the challenge of dealing with a heavy theme and by making 12 Years a Slave he makes perhaps the first true masterpiece about slavery – the fact that its director and its leading star are both from London is irrelevant yet slightly ironic. Without ever resorting to romanticism or even touching on the political inclinations of its subject, 12 Years a Slave focuses on one man’s nightmarish experience in a style that is daring, unflinching and sometimes even uncomfortable to watch due to its torture scenes and dense atmosphere of hopelessness. Its power is enhanced by a harrowing Chiwetel Ejiofor, whose portrayal of Northup’s desperation and frightening personal journey through the American slavery is truly praiseworthy.