Essentials: 12 Years a Slave

Year: 2013 (USA)
Genre: Drama/Biography
Directed: Steve McQueen
Stars: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong'o, Paul Dano, Benedict Cumberbatch, Sarah Paulson, Paul Giamatti, Brad Pitt, Dwight Henry, Bryan Batt
Production: Regency Enterprises


I'm taking a slight diversion from my Top 100 countdown to champion a recent film I was blessed to see only a few short days ago. With my general over-consumption of films and increasingly snobbish response to most of today's ballyhoo Hollywood hokum, It's become nearly impossible to truly love a new film. Plus, lets face it, every endearing classic needs to go through the test of time before it can be considered truly essential cinema. Forrest Gump (1994) won the Oscar the year it was released yet ask any movie-geek and they'd probably prefer Pulp Fiction (1994) or Shawshank Redemption (1994) who were both nominated for the same award.

The naked truth can be hard to watch

I can say with reasonable confidence that 12 Years a Slave (2013) will stand the test of time and become one of the defining features of this decade. It is a film that puts a face and emotional resonance on the issue of slavery quite unlike any dedicated to celluloid before. It's got solid performances all-around and while award season hasn't quite hit high gear this year, I would put money on 12 Years a Slave winning big.

But I digress; 12 Years a Slave is based on the life of Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) a learned black freeman living in Saratoga Springs, New York circa 1841. He lives comfortably with two children and his wife and makes a living playing the violin. Introduced to a duo of conniving showmen, Solomon wakes up after a drunken bender in a D.C. boarding house and is told he is to be sold at slave auction. He is then transported by steamboat to New Orleans where a fellow traveler gives him life-saving advice; "If they find out you can read, you'll be one dead n---." Once sold at auction, Solomon spends the next 12 years working for two separate masters, one benevolent and kind (for a slave-owner anyway), the other covetous and cruel.


I saw Roots...so we cool now?

I could go on forever simply describing Solomon's galling journey experiencing first-hand one of America's biggest crimes against humanity. It's one thing to read about slavery through textbooks or see it through Roots (1977) reruns; It's another thing to feel almost like you have lived through it. You may not feel the lashes of the whips but you can almost smell the sweat escaping from Solomon's pores, taste the salty tears of every misfortune and feel you heart beating in your throat at every tense moment.

You can accredit this exchange of empathy to the brilliant acting of Chiwetel Ejiofor, an actor who up until now was known to me as the guy from the underrated Talk to Me (2007). You may know him as the baddy from Serenity (2005) but after this movie, you may well know him as Academy Award winner Chiwetel Ejiofor, taking his place among the unfortunately small group of black actors who have taken home top prize.

But lest you think 12 Years a Slave is a one man show, Michael Fassbender plays a sadistic slave-owner by the name of Edwin Epps with aplomb. I truly hated his character not because for his barbarism but for his human frailty. He takes out his lack of fortitude on his slaves all the while convincing the audience that such a person likely existed and isn't a caricature or composite of ignorant, immoral Southern plantation owners of the day. Also to look for is Lupita Nyong'o and

Absolute tool

Sarah Paulson, who play Epps's favorite slave and his jealous wife respectively.

What is most impressive and most disheartening about the whole sordid tale is how impossibly ordinary the events of the story are. Director Steve McQueen tries hard to create a sense of normalcy through extended pauses on the shocking treatment of slaves juxtaposed with everyday happenings in the background. There is one scene where Solomon is almost lynched for talking back to a plantation supervisor. As Solomon is left alone with a noose around his neck, black children play in the background undisturbed by Solomon precariously tiptoeing on the ground to prevent choking. People are bought, sold, beaten, lynched and raped all with a perverted sense of the everyday.

12 Years a Slave to me not only speaks volumes about the world that once was, before trading in human flesh was abolished, it speaks to the condition of the world today. What things do we consider everyday, and even mundane that those in generations to come will judge us for? Will there ever be another time slavery will become common place? I like to think not for as the great Martin Luther King Jr. once said, "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice." I don't think I'm giving much away by saying Solomon never got to see that justice in his lifetime. Many including myself contend we will not see true justice in respect to slavery for a good long time. Yet we can all agree that the hard lessons learned from slavery should never be forgotten. Thank goodness we have Steve McQueen and 12 Years a Slave to make sure we won't.

You know, that and history class

Final Grade: A

Essentials: No Man's Land

Year: 2001 (Bosnia-Herzegovina)
Genre: War Drama/Black Comedy
Directed: Danis Tanovic
Stars: Branko Djuric, Rene Bitorajac, Filip Sovagovic, Georges Siatidis, Serge-Henri Valcke, Simon Callow, Katrin Cartlidge, Tanja Ribic
Production: Noe Productions


About halfway through No Man's Land (2001), a minor character reads a newspaper and vexes about the situation in Rwanda. We all know what he is talking about when he refers to the "situation" but we as the audience can't help but giggle at his comment. For this minor character, and in fact all the characters are trapped in a very similar situation; the Balkan conflict/genocide following the breakup of Yugoslavia. Yet through this singular comment, one can get a true sense of the caustic world director Danis Tanovic creates for us.

The film starts with a group of Bosnian soldiers traipsing through dense fog. They are on their way to the front but have gotten lost and decide to camp out for the night. The next morning they discover they are in the middle of no man's land, the space between two enemy lines. All but one (Branko Duric) manages to crawl into an abandoned trench. The rest are mowed down by friendly fire. Two Serbian soldiers are sent into the fray to see what had happened; one is killed, the other (Rene Bitorajac) injured and trapped along with the Bosnian in the middle of two fronts. Just as things are starting to calm down between the two, a second Bosnian survivor (Filip Sovagovic), previously thought to be dead, wakes up and discovers he is booby-trapped with a mine under his back, unable to move.

The central crisis isn't so much a tension fructifying experience that allows for character development and constructive dialogue, it's rather a story of wicked satire about modern warfare with the three in no man's land becoming pawns in a complex and lugubrious conflict. At first no one seems willing to help these men; not the Bosnians, not the Serbians and certainly not the United Nations. It is only through the rash decisions of U.N. peacekeeper Sergeant Marchand (Georges Siatidis) and intrepid reporter Jane Livingstone (Katrin Cartlidge) that these soldiers' problem becomes a bit of a global fascination.

Remember the days when war was fought between two opposing forces who would duke it out in geometric formations? Noble men would sacrifice themselves for their country and charge heroically into the fray; ramparts, rockets red glare, star-spangled, all-American warmongering etc. Nowadays peacekeepers, humanitarian aid, nation building, and bureaucracy are permanent unavoidable realities of war. It's almost like the powers that be are trying to suck all the fun out of combat.

The film doesn't take sides in the Baltic conflict, nor does it truly admonish the motivations behind the war itself. No Man's Land is not that small of a movie. No Man's Land attempts and largely succeeds in showing the ridiculous exercise in futility that is war as a whole. Even in today's modern world where things have become more complicated, with leaders bloviating, armchair generals amassing forces through spreadsheets and memos, lazy lieutenants barking orders to their underlings, the actual act of war is ultimately barbaric and immoral. "Neutrality does not exist in the face of murder." says Sergeant Marchand "Doing nothing to stop it is, in fact, choosing. It is not being neutral." With those words Marchand makes the connection many fail to draw on their own, war no matter how justified is still an act of murder. And that is ultimately how No Man's Land finishes its darkly comedic story. It begins with a depiction of war and ends with a (spoiler alert) depiction of murder as the world shrugs in ignorance.

For the record, it has been 12 years, 1 month and 2 days since the beginning of the war in Afghanistan which is among a list of approximately 30 continuing armed conflicts all around the world. I say this not to be haughty or controversial but to maintain a larger point. In the ongoing conflict in Israel, 272 Israelis and Palestinians were killed in 2012. By comparison 504 Americans were murdered in Chicago and 386 were killed in Detroit that same year. What that means is if we were to define war by fatalities we have more than a few in our own country. Or to put it more responsibly, we have a lot of murder globally to answer for. 

Just as the credits in No Man's Land are about to roll, the intrepid reporter we have come to admire is asked if she wants one last shot of the trench. A quote by Albert Einstein goes through my mind every time I watch that particular last scene; "Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism - how passionately I hate them!  How vile and despicable war seems to me!  I would rather be hacked in pieces than take part in such an abominable business." Sadly, in the fashion that many of the disaffected would answer, she says "No. A trench is a trench, they're all the same." I guess it's easy to not ruminate over such things when you can just change the channel.

Essentials: La Haine

Year: 1995 (France)
Genre: Drama/Crime Drama
Directed: Mathieu Kassovitz
Stars: Vincent Cassel, Hubert Kounde, Said Taghmaoui, Abdel Ahmed Ghili, Solo, Joseph Momo, Heloise Rauth, Benoit Magimel
Production: Canal+


When I was in high school, I read the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe in my English class. The novel follows the life of a Igbo tribesman and his kin as they adjust to the arrival of Christian missionaries and struggle with the impact of British colonial rule. It's a great book that illustrates Western cultures' largely grim history towards "less civilized" societies. Better still, Things Fall Apart is not liberal white guilt shrouded in anthropological verses; it's a book that attempts to accurately portray things as they were and as they eventually became. The main character Okonkwo isn't a mindless barbarian nor a noble tribesman but somewhere in-between. Hubert, Vinz and Said, the main characters of La Haine (1995) (roughly translates from French to Hate), are much like Okonkwo. They are not quite saints or sinners, just a gang of French kids with little to do but sit around and watch the world throw insult and injury at their banlieue.

Banlieue means suburb.

But let us start at the beginning; 10:38am. Said (Said Taghmaoui) a young man of Middle Eastern descent is standing outside of Vinz's (Vincent Cassel) house waiting for him to wake up. He calls out his name creating a ruckus Vinz's neighbors don't take too kindly to. As Vinz goes about his business getting ready there is a menorah behind him. They meet up with Hubert (Hubert Kounde) a young black man just trying to keep his nose clean especially since the last riot in the banlieue left many public buildings ransacked and his friends may have been involved. To top it all off, one of their friends Abdel was put into a coma while in police custody and Vinz vows to get revenge anyway he can.

Sweet, sweet revenge

The precipitating macguffin is a lost police firearm that the trio get ahold of. Vinz would like to use it

Macguffin means plot device through a desired object

to kill a cop if Abdel dies and holsters it like a gangster wannabe. Through the gun, the audience travels with the young multi-ethnic men through nineteen hours in the life. The voiceover forebodingly divulges a tale; "Heard about the guy who fell off a skyscraper? On his way down past each floor, he kept saying to reassure himself: So far so good... so far so good... so far so good. How you fall doesn't matter. It's how you land!" Throughout the day the three have constant run-ins with police; some trying to keep the boys out of trouble, some just doing their jobs, and some abusing their power. It's easy to see how things will land.

But to summarize La Haine as a story about men making bad decisions and getting punished for it would be selling the filmmakers short. The movie expands to explore the nature of violence and how it can inhabit minds. Furthermore it explores how poverty, and racism can coax violence from people. The characters are all minorities living in a country that is passively and symbolically racist towards them. They feed off of the violence depicted in popular entertainment and are incensed by the police brutality around them. Yet they have nowhere to release their frustrations. "Hate breeds hate," the sensible Hubert explains as Vinz pumps himself up for possible homicide.

It's important to note that much like the Projects of Chicago or New York, the banlieues of Paris are apportioned largely by differences in income distribution and extreme racial segregation. While Said and Vinz would under other circumstances be religiously in conflict, because of their minority status, they interact with the world at large in tandem.



Improper use of the word milieu

Like Things Fall Apart, La Haine follows the same tragic hero milieu that certainly doesn't end with rays of sunshine. Still the raw acting talent exhibited by the cast, the stylish bare-bones directing by Matthieu Kassovitz and, above all biting social commentary, makes this film a must watch. I'll leave you with the first part of William Yeat's poem for which the title of Things Fall Apart is based off of which seems apropos:

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Final Grade: A