12 years a slave

[Apestrife]

Easily this year's best feel bad movie. Made me teary at least 3 times. "Worst" (meant in a good way) thing I'v seen since The road.

Love it that the subject of the film didn't stop at the horrors of slavery, but went beyond and inside the minds of the slaves. Showing what fear can inflict. The stuff that makes 1984 such a great read for me or Bus174 or Act of killing such brilliant documentaries.

That everything about the film is brilliant isn't a shame either.

So in short, I think it's a fantastic film. One I believe and hope will make people stop and think for a moment what humans done to each other, and still do to this day. Be it prostitutes, people in a war zone or them getting cancer in a chem pit while making jeans in hopes to make enough to be able to get more out of life than just survive.

What you guys think?

[Frank]

I had an interesting conversation with a guy at my work yesterday, who said he enjoyed the film and went on to place it in his list of favourite straight to DVD Saw rip-offs with the word torture in the title. I went along with the premise, because I'm used to having those kind of discussions at work, but it did strike me that there's nothing stopping anyone from enjoying the film on the same level as those films and for the same reasons.

It's fantastically well made, and anyone who doesn't get cold sweats in the scenes where Patsy and Solomon fall foul of the perverse cruelty and injustice of their masters is missing something important, but it can definitely be understood as The Human Centipede for Sunday supplement readers.

[TordelBack]

,,, it can definitely be understood as The Human Centipede for Sunday supplement readers.

Oh it's a fine line between enjoying the brutal combat scenes in Saving Private Ryan and shelving Schindler's List between Caged Heat and Porkies.

[JOE SOAP]

12 Years a Slave may be one of those films that is viewed but once in the same span of time but The Passion of the Christ is still some of the best torture porn around— someone certainly had a taste for the lash. Interesting to hear if Mel Gibson's DVD commentary is 2 hours of barely stifled moaning and panting.

To think that Jim Caviezel was an also-ran for Dredd could've meant a different take on Lex's bullet to the side and a far more penitential if not staunch Ol' Joe.

[Professor Bear]

I felt I missed the point of the film as it's merely more misery-porn to me, saying nothing that a couple of generations of telemovies-of-the-week haven't already.  The only thing that separates 12 Years from the likes of Roots is the gleefully-embellished torture sequences (YAY CGI BLOOD SPURTS) that, again, offer nothing new beyond pandering to popcorn-chomping gorno lovers.

[Apestrife]

Weird that some seem to enjoy the torture in it.

What I felt the most about was the fine line Solomon walked between surviving and living. For example the writing the letter to his family and friends that was hinted through out till it crashed and he had to lie to live. Not to mention when they put a whip in his hand that they then forced. No wonder he told his family in the end that he was sorry for what he'd done.