12 years of Slave

Most people talk of historical dramas being emotional roller coasters. For me it was anger....annoyance, more anger.....more annoyance. There was no straying from these sets of emotions, no happiness, no relief, nothing. I won't deny that an in-depth adaptation of Solomon Northup's story was provided, it was thought provoking, well thought out and presented most key issues that needed to be expressed. Even still, despite what my sister had informed me about the story, it could never had prepared me emotionally for such.

The first thing I recall from the film was how Solomon was sold back into slavery following being lured in under false pretences. His benefactors, Brown and Hamilton, epitomise from the beginning the foul nature that manifests within some human beings. Selfish, without remorse or conscience for such an indecent act as selling someone to be a slave. It really reaffirms from the off what we talked about in the previous lecture, that slaves were regarded as no better than animals. As every well rounded film does it also attempts to perpetuate that feeling of "they're not all bad" and that within a bad crop, they are still good seeds, Ford is the first of these figures in the film. However I do not necessarily co sign the fact that he treats Solomon "well" he just treats him better than other people do. He provides to him what should generally be afforded to someone of his ilk and hard working nature, he pays him compliments and eventually saved him from an unjust punishment. Such actions, should not necessarily mean that such a figure represents a heroin as what was  afforded to him was what should be afforded to any human beings. Similarly it can be said that he himself subjected him to one of his most heinous tenures he had to endure and that was being transferred to Epps farm. In my opinion  both Epps and Ford represent the same thing, Evil. The fact that they both purchase and sell slaves is evil in itself and the simple fact that one is more brutal and less accepting than the other does not change this. Those that believe one is better than the other, are in my opinion, sadly mistaken and not fully grasping the movie as a concept.

The treatment of the slaves throughout is gory, graphic and all out brutal. To think a human being was subjected to such is frankly a joke and just evokes more anger on my part. Regardless of whether or not I subscribe to the theory of whether men and women should be treated as equal, beating a woman like the way Epps beat Patsy was painful to watch. It is paramount to someone beating your mother or your sister, and all I could think about was, what if I, and my family members lived in that time. After her ordeal, Epps stated that where his property was involved "there is no sin". I'm sure God would be shaking his head at the sight of such ignorance. It just serves to highlight the attempts made to legitimise his actions which are without justification. 

One point of interest in the film that disappointed me, was the lack of real resistance posed by the slaves. In the same way I believe that the film provides a well rounded account, I think in this area it fell short. From our lessons we know the kind of opposition that was ongoing, a visual portrayal of this therefore would have made the film complete. However this does not take away from the fact that the movie was  success on many forms. I hope it serves as an eye opener to all creeds alike, and particularly those that think prejudice is acceptable or appropriate in the society we live in today.