January: Film Of The Month

12 Years A Slave (2013)

Director: Steve McQueen

Writers: John Ridley, Solomon Northup

Stars: Chiwetel Ejiofor,Michael Fassbender

 

12 Years A Slave tells the extraordinary tale of Solomon Northup’s hapless descent into the murky depths of slavery and serfdom from the comparative utopia of his previously free north. Northup’s world collapses into the punishing nightmare of an oppressive South where his education and wits are reduced to mere survivalist virtues, whilst his liberties turn to labour, all that he has loved has been lost and life languishes in the cotton fields where only the soulful sound of negro spirituals offer any evidence that the condemned have anything to live for.

Charged with bringing Northup’s tale to a cinematic life is Chiwetel Ejiofor whose performance is nothing less than gigantic, his face is a constant state of perplexed anger that serves to mask his inner fear at the terror unfolding around him, as he is tricked by an ostensive pair of newly acquainted business partners into his impending oblivion. Ejiofor’s voice, a towering blend of majesty and verse like delivery in an obscure way offers faintest of hope to not only him but those around him and we who watch on helplessly at the horror.

Director Steve McQueen’s fragmentation of the narrative reflects Northup’s state of mind continuingly finding poignancies in his free past as in his stricken future where we encounter the likes of Michael Fassbender’s colossally cruel slave owner Epps. Epps is a puzzling, paradox of a man  who becomes Northup’s would be nemesis, lusting for negro flesh be it on the tip of his punitive whipping sessions or his furtive desire fuelled endeavours with his favourite cotton picker Patsey played by Lupita Nyong'o who only exists it seems to be broken, either by Epps or the unbearable heft of despair.

12 Years’ has the power, sense of enormity and personal involvement of Spielberg’s Schindler’s List, is equally painful to watch yet necessary to see, which in itself gives McQueen and all involved the high praise it deserves.

10/10      

Somethink Old Somethink New

Old:Europa Europa (1990)

Director: Agnieszka Holland

Writers: Solomon Perel, Agnieszka Holland,

Stars: Marco Hofschneider, René Hofschneider
 

Solomon Perel (upon who’s written account the film is based) is part of a German Jewish family about to incur the hateful sphere of Nazi Germany’s Nuremburg Laws, despite escaping to Polish refuge in Lodz the danger follows and the family is divided. Solomon subsequently via a ricocheting collective of fate and fortune finds his way into a Bolshevik orphanage, part of a German army unit and enrollment at a Hitler Youth school.

At each stop we suffer a juxtaposing set of belief systems, and are told “Communism is Beautiful” by a Russian Teacher, a German educator waxes lyrical of the Fuhrer’s lust for the purity of Nordic faced Aryan race, whilst a German School girl and would be love interest reveals her poisoned longing to see his people eradicated. Solomon absorbing all this hate and bluster must also ingests a grimly symbolic Grave of Jewish Graves Stones and the pain of his gruesome attempts to reverse his now clandestine circumcision; the only way his true ethnic identity can be revealed.

Europa Europa takes a particularly nuanced look at this survivalist true story of a Jewish boy manoeuvring his way through World War 2, the film has a rather assumptive stance on the graphic horrors of the war which are implied but not widely shown, instad there is a focus on the intense ideological backdrop of the conflict which manifests itself through religion, political propaganda and imposing institutionalism.

 

8/10

New:Last Vegas (2013)

Director: Jon Turteltaub

Writer: Dan Fogelman

Stars: Robert De Niro, Michael Douglas, Morgan Freeman

Imagine Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, David Bowie and the lead singer from Shed Seven getting together for a knees-up in Blackpool to which you are invited, what might sound like it has all the ingredients for a great night soon declines into the group ogling young girls they are old enough to grandparent. If you can imagine this then you are at least half the way to the attempted joys of Last Vegas, a film that promises you 3 legends for the price of 4 and proceeds to patronise its audience with some uninspired life messages with only a few mildly funny gags to act as compensation.

In what could be dubbed the “The Expendables for serious actors”, Michael Douglas assembles his old pals Robert De Niro, Morgan Freeman and last and least Kevin Kline for a Bachelor Party in Sin City as he battles to fight off father time by marrying a woman half his age, in the process his friends are drawn into a similar battle against the other purported lethargies of later life such as stale sexless marriages, loneliness and ill health.

In the end Last Vegas resembles that night out you probably could do without, but couldn't help feeling like you'd be missing out so you pop along for the heck of it, only to return home somewhat underwhelmed by your own sobriety.

6/10