12 Years A Slave (2013) Review

There's something about a memoir...even if it's poorly written. A personal story of struggle leading to triumph triggers something inside of me. Two adjectives to describe 12 Years A Slave (2013), directed by Steve McQueen, are disturbing and brilliant.  McQueen tells a simple story of a free black man, Solomon Northup, from Upstate, New York, whom is kidnapped and sold into slavery. Although the storyline is simplistic, Solomon Northup's personal journey is very complex. McQueen does an outstanding job of encapsulating the torture, angst, anguish, hurt, loss, and inferiority of one's man fight for survival in an unfair battleground in the 1800s.

 Northup, a skilled carpenter and fiddler from Saratoga Springs, New York, is kidnapped by Theophilis Freeman, a slave-trader whom sells Northup into slavery in New Orleans. Solomon Northup is bought by William Ford whom forces Northup to work his plantation by picking cotton, building a gazebo, and playing the fiddle on demand.

Ford, initially, seems to be a decent fellow buying slaves. How quickly the audience learns of his malicious tendencies to overwork his people, define them as property, and force his way into their lives physically, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually. A real Hitler-esque kind of man; he is always taking, beating, and raping his property.

Northup's instinct for survival is to do what he is told, and to trust no one until the right time presents itself. Insisting he is an uneducated man whom cannot write, he secretly writes a letter to his friends in New York and befriends a white field hand and former overseer in which he secretly requests him to mail his hand written letter. In return, Northup will give him money earned from his fiddling. The field hand keeps Northup's money only to betray him. As a consequence, Northup must be beaten then whip fellow plantation worker, Patsey, until her muscles are raw and she hurts so bad she would rather die than live another day to be tortured and treated worse than an infested cockroach.

Then one day, God answers Solomon's prayers, sends a Canadian angel named Bass to risk his life to help Solomon Northup get word to his friends in New York to rescue him from the plantation...

And, that folks, is how a memoir sucker punches me in the gut, and stabs me in the heart leaving me with a tenderness of one man's struggle leading to triumph by means of surviving a torturous journey of the unexpected.