 |
| (Fox Searchlight) |
“There’s
nothing to forgive,” so goes the final line of Steve McQueen’s 12 Years a Slave, a haunting masterpiece
that confronts history and viscerally examines the depth of human suffering and
cruelty so engrained in American identity.
Adapting
Solomon Northup’s 1853 memoir of the same name, McQueen and screenwriter John
Ridley (Three Kings) hold nothing
back in what might just be the most intrepidly gruesome, painful and honest
depiction of slavery ever captured on film.
The
story of Solomon (Chiwetel Ejiofor) – a free black man unjustly captured, sold
into slavery against his will, and horrifically abused for twelve long years –
is one that asks us not to relate his experience to today. It compels us to
reflect, absorb and comprehend.
McQueen’s
vision is challenging and delicate, balancing Solomon’s story with moments that
extend beyond the original material. Opening with a gloomy portrait of a group
of slaves standing together lifelessly in a field, Solomon appears no different
than those surrounding him. This image of Solomon in dirty rags, preparing for
the day’s work, deliberately dehumanizes our hero. Yet McQueen’s subsequent
scene, another flash-forward in which Solomon and a female slave engage in
loveless, passionless, quick sex, complicates his protagonist for the audience.
He appears guilty and broken, and Ejiofor suggests a longing and complexity
that extends beyond the initial image of “the slave.”
Ridley
and McQueen then begin Solomon’s story, flashing back to his days as a free man
with a wife, children, and a trade. He is a talented, respected violin player
with acquaintances both white and black. He lives a sort of American dream for
the time, and without disruption.
Eloquent
and well-mannered, to the viewer there is nothing in Solomon’s character that
suggests he should not lead this life. Yet along the same lines, nothing feels
particularly odd with our introduction to Solomon as a slave among slaves,
dressed like the rest and broken like the rest.
This
is McQueen’s pattern as a filmmaker. Constantly, he tests perception,
challenging our image of Solomon as a free man or a slave, as one in a million
or one among million, as familiar to those that we acquaint ourselves with, or
familiar to an established historical narrative.
Solomon
himself contends with these images. There’s a determination in his kidnappers
and masters to compel him into believing that he is, exclusively and
inherently, a slave, not the free man that deserves to walk among them.
Paralleled with Solomon’s own journey, that opening shot is crucial – its
familiarity hauntingly lingers throughout, serving as a reminder that this is
not only the norm, but an expectation in our minds. It is, strangely, just.
McQueen
capitalizes on this juxtaposition after Solomon’s kidnapping. At this moment,
we know Solomon to be a free man; yet, like a caged animal, he yelps in
shackles to no avail. Again, the images of the slave and of the free man visually
meet in the middle.
This
is precisely before Solomon’s captors exhibit inconceivable sadism and
maliciousness, beating him over, and over, and over. They ask him to admit to
being a slave, and each time Solomon refuses – “I’m a free man,” he pleads – they
beat him again. McQueen grants the viewer no reprieve from the horror. He keeps
the camera still in the dark, as the beating goes on and on, as Solomon
struggles to breathe, as his cry turns into a squeal. The visual “meeting in
the middle” evolves quickly into a brutal, relentless confrontation for the
viewer to grapple with.
This
establishes what underlines 12 Years a
Slave, and the story of Solomon Northup as he arrives at the plantation of
Master Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender, who served as McQueen’s protagonist in Hunger and Shame). After being kidnapped like an animal and sold like
property, we return to that opening image in present day – Solomon, a slave
among slaves.
Much
of 12 Years a Slave takes place on
this plantation, and again the film extends beyond source material. Added
attention is given to Patsey (Lupita Nyong’o, in her first film role), Epps’
top cotton picker who is subject to his grotesquely-motivated affection and
most severe cruelty. As treatment towards her worsens – Mistress Epps’ (a
fantastic Sarah Paulson) jealousy subsequently renders Patsey a pawn not only
for Master Epps’ affection, but also his wife’s abhorrence towards her – Patsey
chases death, tragically requesting that Solomon take her life, and relieve her
of pain. Solomon refuses – he knows what life can offer and has not been wholly
dispirited.
Riddled
with tragic irony, he is then coerced by Epps into beating Patsey himself. Her
briefly leaving the plantation to obtain soap to clean herself angers Epps, and
much to the Mistress’ delight, provides cause for a beating. Yet the Master
cannot do it himself, and so, he hands Solomon the whip. The scene is
excruciating. McQueen holds the camera on Solomon first, as we watch the
once-free man limply beating a comrade and a friend. He intensifies the
whipping as per Epps’ request, and we then cut to, and hold on, Patsey – we are
left to watch what it means to wish death upon oneself.
Solomon
survives and escapes, yet his departure is the very antithesis of triumphant.
Before he departs, Patsey says goodbye; McQueen strikingly surrounds the moment
around her. Solomon is the one to get away after twelve years. He leaves behind
people who will never escape.
McQueen
has created something astounding here. Trained as an artist, his 12 Years a Slave is a visual marvel, a
rare piece of near-perfect filmmaking. Each shot is perfectly framed, the
lighting delicate, the score from Hans Zimmer broodingly powerful.
McQueen’s
motifs, like the violin, track the separation and congruence of what it means
to be free, and not, as a black man. Music is Solomon’s passion, his trade; as
the film progresses, however, it goes from something that is his to something
that becomes the property of his masters – a source of entertainment, a symbol
of his lost freedom.
The
director also has a remarkable command of his actors, including small roles for
Benedict Cumberbatch as a tamer master, Paul Giamatti as a charismatic slave
trader, and a host of others. Toplining the cast, Ejiofor ranges from quietly
dignified to helplessly in despair. He cries, howls, yearns, and observes.
Another actor in this role would no doubt ham it up, but Ejiofor maintains
Solomon’s dignity and pride. We believe him and connect with him, and it never
feels as if Ejiofor is overdoing it. On
the supporting side, Nyong’o expresses a remarkable vulnerability as Patsey,
and lands the film’s most devastating moment. Playing her tormentor, Fassbender
extracts equally strong reactions – in this case, anger – with an equally
committed performance. He is vile, tormented, disturbed, and Fassbender refuses
to hold back.
“There’s
nothing to forgive,” Solomon’s wife tells him upon his return. McQueen avoids
heavy-handedness in his film, and is careful not to be too suggestive with this
brutal historical drama. Yet this line cuts deep as a reflection of all that
came before it; of that opening shot, of what it meant to be a slave and to be
free, of this terrible, long chapter in American life.
 |
| (Focus Features) |
Dallas Buyers Club
is a handsomely-crafted if unremarkable feature from Jean-Marc Vallée
(The Young Victoria). Boasting a
slick, refined visual style; terrific, breakout performances from Matthew
McConaughey and Jared Leto; and a warm, funny script from Craig Borten (his
first produced script) and Melissa Wallack (Mirror
Mirror), the film finds both humor and honesty in its telling of a
sorely-underrepresented time period in American film.
Despite
its aesthetic merits, Dallas Buyers Club
mostly shies away from the deepest horrors of the AIDS crisis of the 1980s,
which claimed over half a million American lives, and instead opts for
something accessible, funnier and easier to swallow. This is not a bad choice –
on the contrary, it makes for great entertainment – but, it does suffice to say
that this is no Angels in America.
Spanning
around a decade, the film chronicles the real-life journey of the drug-addled,
homophobic rodeo cowboy Ron Woodroof (McConaughey) after he learns, to his
utter disbelief, that he has been diagnosed with AIDS and has 30 days to live.
As he begins taking AZT, the only treatment for the disease approved by the
Food and Drug Administration (FDA), his condition only worsens. A series of
events leads him to a place where unapproved – yet effective – treatments are
provided in Mexico, and soon, Ron is making a healthy profit selling them out
of a hotel room – a “buyers club” set in the heart of Dallas.
He
is surrounded by two supporting characters – Eve Saks (an appealing Jennifer
Garner), an increasingly reluctant doctor prescribing medicine (that she knows to
be basically useless) to AIDS-diagnosed patients, and Rayon (Leto), a
trans*gender woman that starts out under Eve’s care but gradually switches over
to Ron’s drugs, acting as his business partner along the way.
Dallas Buyers Club
is rife with staples of American cinema. Ron’s redemptive story, evolving from
a foul-mouthed bigot to a foul-mouthed sort-of-saint, is nothing new. Nor is
the odd-couple pairing of Ron and Rayon, which is played for both laughs and as
a unique way to dive into our two central characters.
Credit
must be given where it is due, and Dallas
Buyers Club deserves a lot of it. This is a film that could easily flail
with the various tropes it overtly embraces, its unashamedly blunt appeals to
pathos, and a cast and crew hardly known for making great work. Yet everything
here works surprisingly, immensely well.
Ron’s
journey is skillfully handed by Borten and Wallack, but McConaughey’s spellbinding
performance is what keeps it from straying into cliché. McConaughey, who has
made taking on challenging roles a habit of late, makes this role his, and only
his. His sardonic wit, his Texas tongue, his affable smile – these are all
trademarks of the actor. Trademarks only get you so far, and it is when
McConaughey surprises you – when he howls in sadness, when he silently
contemplates over his bleak future, when he daringly chases after love – that
you realize just how good he is, and when his charm is more heartbreakingly
relieving than comfortably familiar.
He
is matched by his writers, who hold a strong grasp on the character – even if they
walk a tightrope for much of the film. It’s easy to look at Ron being the
center of this film, and call it a shamelessly safe choice. He is a straight
male, his evolution is practically an anomaly and his blatant insults, in the
hands of a lesser crew, would be hard to take. McConaughey’s effortless
affability solves that last problem, but the first two are much more complex,
and an actor’s wry charms cannot be enough to challenge them.
This
is where Vallée’s
direction comes in, and where his vision is such an essential component of the
film’s success. Ron remains relatively self-interested throughout; even when he
is supplying much-needed drugs to very sick people, he does it principally
because of the money he earns. Yes, his motives slide more toward the “I want
to help” side by the end, but Ron is not the combatant to a disease that
plagued, predominantly, gay men. He’s a dying man among dying men, fighting a
practically hopeless battle. And he’s not the story’s hero, exactly. He’s
certainly not the crisis’ hero – that role would be filled by, if anyone,
Rayon. At first introduced as the feminine antidote to Ron’s aggressive
masculinity, Rayon – thanks in large part to Leto’s beautifully unexpected
performance – becomes the true victim. He is the one wronged by the
decision-makers, hopelessly dying without reprieve.
And
so the “odd couple” trope turns on its head, and darkly turns toward something
much more representative of what the film is trying to say. It is fair to say
that Rayon is not, in fact, the film’s center – it would irrefutably be a more
daring, albeit more divisive, film if it was – but he plays a large role, and
is a character carefully rounded out by Vallée
and Leto.
At
its core, Dallas Buyers Club is not
about redemption, or friendship, or acceptance. Those are incorporated into
this man’s story, but not into this film’s. Rather, Vallée
is concerned with systematic ignorance, with a governmental atrocity still
largely ignored in today’s popular culture. This is not the AIDS movie we will
remember, because Vallée
delves more into a specific idea behind it: those that allowed it to drag on. Dallas Buyers Club proceeds with a ferocity,
willing you to wring your hands in anger – the fact that this man, an ignorant
cowboy, could cure dying people in a way the government refused to is Vallée’s
dilemma, and his quietly uncompromising reflection on that fact.
Yet
it is not confrontational. Vallée
infuses his newest – and best – feature with a whole lot of humor and a whole
lot of heart. The ending celebrates Ron, and generally avoids the desperate
situation that still surrounded his enterprise at that time. But, if nothing
especially profound, Dallas Buyers Club
does those affected justice, and asks important questions along the way. B+
Previous 2013 Throwback Entries:
Enough Said and In a World...
Captain Phillips and All Is Lost
Previous 2013 Throwback Entries:
Enough Said and In a World...
Captain Phillips and All Is Lost