86. 12 Years A Slave (2013)

Plot Intro

New York, 1841. African American free man, Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) lives a life of relative peace with his wife and children. But on a trip to Washington DC, where slavery is legal, he is drugged and kidnapped by two slave dealers and sold into slavery. His protests are ignored, and he is sent to deepest darkest Louisana where he must toil under the tyranny of Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender), and confront the suffering of his fellow slaves.

Paul says...

12 Years a Slave is pretty comparable to 1993’s winner, Schindler’s List. It tackles a topic and period of history that can drive someone to therapy for PTSD just thinking about it, and it’s made with a tenacious desire to expose and illustrate exactly how horrifying life was for the oppressed. It’s also a pretty accurate depiction of one man’s story, so it feels slightly disrespectful to the people who suffered historically if I were to criticise the film.

But, I’m afraid I AM going to criticise it despite the film’s virtues. Admittedly, it’s an admirable win, bearing in mind it defeated such popular hits as American Hustle, Captain Phillips, Dallas Buyers Club, Gravity, Philomena and The Wolf of Wall Street, but at least four of those would have had my vote over Slave. 

I think this is a bold statement to make bearing in mind how gruelling the film is, and the film does have some things going for it. It stays close to the original source material, a memoir written by Northup himself after he was restored to freedom, and its a remarkable tale, starkly reminding us that even those African Americans who lived in states where slavery was outlawed could suffer the sadistic hand of the white supremacist. Meanwhile, the climactic scene that deservedly won Lupita Nyong’o her Best Supporting Actress Oscar, is a tour de force in itself. Both she and Northup have it out with the evil Epps (Michael Fassbender, overracting a bit), get beaten and whipped, while an impassive Sarah Paulson and various other slaves watch on, all portrayed within one, smooth camera shot. And as a piece of education about the acts and evils of slavery in pre-civil war US, there’s plenty to unpick.

But where it falls short of Schindler’s List status is probably its total lack of heart. Schindler’s List is notoriously horrible and you lose track of the number of people succumbing to the Nazi death policies. Schindler’s famous ending, in which the real figures from the story visit Schindler’s grave accompanied by their actor counterparts, accentuate the heroism of the central figure to the point where we all had to have private trips to the bathroom to ball our eyes out. 12 Years a Slave has no such moment- it’s just gruelling. It’s a series of scenes in which Solomon is kidnapped, beaten, wounded, sold, disregarded and separated from his family for over a decade- but not even Solomon is supplied with much characterisation other than the stoicism and perfection one only gets from the heroes of ancient epics. The white characters are either good-hearted (but slave owners), or evil racists (and also slave owners). The black characters are either hysterical screamers or just don’t get any lines at all. 

I can see that this was a deliberate choice. This is a topic-driven tale and Steve McQueen pointed out in his Oscar acceptance speech that he wanted to expose an issue that still permeates the Earth today, and he does this well. But if only the script had put more insight, more depth into its characters, then we could potentially feel for them on the same complex levels as those in Schinder’s List. 

Highlight

The climactic showdown between Epps and Northup/Lupita Nyong’o is worth watching on its own. It loses its shock factor somewhat because many of the preceding scenes are just as, if not more, shocking. But it’s still staged incredibly well.

Lowlight

The opening scenes in which Solomon is drugged and kidnapped jump around in time a bit haphazardly to the point where his actual kidnapping loses its punch. It should be a much more devastating “oh God, how the hell is he going to get out of this one” moment, but it isn’t.

Mark

6/10

Doug says...

I came into this slightly warily because I’ve heard so much about it being gruelling and difficult to watch, and so in a way I was slightly surprised because not every scene is someone being beaten to death. Turns out previous viewers somehow over-exaggerated which is pretty impressive given that the film is highly grisly and brimming with violence. 

It’s a well-told film and I particularly liked how director Steve McQueen lets the story unfold slowly, using lingering shots that stay past the moment you imagine other directors would have cut and moved on. The moment when Northup has been (unsuccessfully) hanged by an enraged overseer, and dangles with his toes barely touching the ground is a superb example of this. He struggles for what feels like minutes and McQueen allows the shot to continue, to the extent we start seeing people move around in the background slowly going about their day trying to ignore him struggling. It’s a really intelligent move, letting us see the extent of the slaves’ fear - that they can’t help someone dangling on the edge of life. 

Acting wise it’s a well produced film too. Ejiofor is at a career-best, showing the confusion, fear and life-saving instincts of Northup throughout, while I thought Fassbender did a decent job of showing a drunken bastard who is in love with one of his slaves and simultaneously despises her. Most impressive for me were the women though, Nyong’o and Paulson are marvellous - the former as an oppressed yet still spirited young woman, and the second as a bitter, twisted racist. Paulson is usually fab anyway, but she performs this role - including some incredibly strange moments such as throwing a decanter directly at Nyong’o’s head - with real believability. 

Credit also has to be given to the script, for pointing out the slightly greyer areas that history often omits - such as the black ex-slave who married her master and became a woman of some power and significance, and the white man who was down on his luck and worked alongside the black slaves in the field. 

It’s a sign that this is a film written and directed by people of colour - unlike the atrocious Crash  and the dull Green Book which were both written and directed by white men, and can be summed up as ‘did you know that racism is bad?’ This feels a lot more pointed and powerful for it, with space being given to a more interesting story. As Paul says, the film lacks heart, and frequently chooses to rely on violence to move the audience. Even the pivotal climactic scene where Epps finally bows to his wife’s wishes is moving without being tear-inducing. It’s just grim. 

My main takeaway from this though was more of a question. Why is it that for Hollywood to crown a film with a majority black cast, the subject matter always has to be about racism? Why is it, for that matter, that most mainstream films with a majority black cast are about racism? I’m getting exhausted of the trope, and with films like Crazy Rich Asians using a majority Asian cast to tell a romantic drama, I think it’s time we saw more majority-black films telling stories that don’t focus on a white/black divide. I believe that the upcoming Moonlight will be an example of this, and the recent If Beale Street Could Talk was a wonderful example of a story being told that wasn’t hugely focusing on racism in society but with a massive black cast. So fingers crossed…

Highlight

It’s a strange one, but I’m going to agree with Paul that the climactic scene where Epps finally turns on Lupita Nyong’o’s character is gruesome but also the pinnacle of the film, and one that we’ve been unknowingly led to for quite a while. 

Lowlight

I found Benedict Cumberbatch a bit annoying as a ‘nice’ slave-owner. I get that the film was explaining not all slave-owners were horrid, but come on - they were still owning and working humans for their own profit. 

Mark

7/10 

85. Argo (2012)

Plot Intro

It’s 1980, and Iran is in revolutionary turmoil, having overthrown a corrupt monarchy and replacing it with a conservative, Islamic republic. During all of this, in the middle of Tehran, a group of American embassy workers are in hiding from the Iranian army at the Canadian embassy. To get them out, CIA operative Tony Mendez (Ben Affleck) along with a crack team of diplomats, politicians and Hollywood movie-makers, hatch one of the most bizarre plans the US government has ever sanctioned. 

Doug says...

I came to Argo with a slight misconception that perhaps hindered my viewing experience. I thought this film, detailing how the CIA pretended to be shooting a sci-fi film in Iran to get hostages out, would actually focus on the pretend film. In my head I assumed there would be a large cast of would-be film stars nonplussed by the whole situation, to say nothing of numerous film workers and set designers, all blithely unaware that their whole project was fake. 

However, as good as that film would have been, this is not that. It is instead the story of how they put together the basis for a film, with a script reading and posters, and then used this to carefully weave their way through Iranian unrest and save a bunch of American foreign office workers. So while I enjoyed this film and found it a good piece of work, the film in my head was just so much better. 

This aside, Ben Affleck doesn’t do too badly. It’s a slow burner for the first two thirds and I’ll confess that I started losing interest about halfway through. It could be a good half hour shorter and there’s not much time spent evolving characters, but the premise is interesting, and for the last forty minutes, Affleck kicks everything into gear. It’s ridiculously tense with the hostages desperately trying to board the plane, and the police cottoning on to who they really are. While the last few moments are way too over the top and surely fictional, it’s a neat ending to the saga and very satisfying to watch. 

Where this film really lifts above the usual American Glory Stories for me, is in its refusal to paint the ‘enemy’ as bad. The Iranians are in revolt, but a clear telling of the history at the beginning shows you exactly why they are angry - and fairly so. And during the film, Affleck doesn’t let it sink into ‘us and them’ but rather just tells the story in a way that lets you draw your own conclusions. Even a shopkeeper who angrily yells at the ‘photographer’ (read: hostage in disguise) is shown to have lost a son to the wicked regime that the US aided. It’s not black and white, and it’s admirable how Affleck doesn’t shy away from this. 

In general, it’s a good film - the first two thirds veer on sluggish but the final third is as tense and thrilling as cinema can get. I particularly liked the use of real footage at the end to ground the whole thing in reality. 

Highlight 

The moment in the airport when one of the hostages suddenly starts rattling off in Farsi is thrilling and confusing. It’s some good acting and great cinema. 

Lowlight

Although I can see it’s being carefully set up, the first two thirds begin to drag and it’s yet another example of where a big pair of editing scissors wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Mark 

7/10

Paul says...

Argo is a film that I can really sink my teeth into. It tackles a fascinating historical event that had far-reaching consequences, and remains in living memory. It dissects a little-known, surprising mini-event within this Big Event. And it provides a huge amount of insight into a side of history that, until Western world’s interactions with the Middle East post-9/11, I knew very little about, without feeling like an A Level textbook. Like other historical pieces on our project like The Life of Emile Zola, Mutiny on the Bounty and A Man For All Seasons, Argo has all the trimmings of a Paul film.  

It was something of a surprise win in 2012. It nabbed the Best Picture prize from Django Unchained, Les Miserables, Life of Pi, Lincoln, Silver Linings Playbook and Zero Dark Thirty, and only won 2 other awards on the night. Only Alan Arkin received an acting award nomination, and Affleck didn’t receive a nomination for Best Director (usually a sure-fire sign that you ain’t gettin’ Best Picture). 

And honestly, I think it’s a great win, although I do very much like Life of Pi and Django Unchained. As Doug says, the film is careful not to demonise the Iranians. They’re angry and uncontrollable in the throes of revolution, but we know why. The emphasis of the film is not on establishing American superiority over a nation that vehemently rejected the US, but rather on rescuing the innocent people trapped in the stampede without causing or provoking more bloodshed. This is such a pertinent message for a post-9/11 world, where too many people are sharing bollocks on Facebook about Muslims “invading” and “terrorising” the West and declaring the need to wage war against them. Argo is a well-constructed fable about how bloodless missions, although incredibly difficult and dangerous, will create survivors. War, however, absolutely will not. 

I also enjoyed the parallels with science-fiction movies, particularly Star Wars (which, in 1980, was the most important piece of sci-fi at the time), with some humorous nods towards Flash Gordon too (there’s an actor at a press event for the counterfeit movie dressed almost exactly like Max Von Sydow as Ming the Merciless). There’s a poignant montage about halfway through in which we flit between a table read of “Argo”, in which actors in ridiculous late-70s futuristic spandex spout out the most preposterous lines, and a haunting scene in which various American hostages are blindfolded by Iranian revolutionaries and made to think they’re about to be executed. The film also ends with images of Star Wars characters on a child’s toy shelf, accompanied by a sketch of a scene from “Argo” itself. 

Again, I get the impression that Affleck is displaying the need for alternatives to out-and-out jingoism, particularly against terrorists and the nations they are associated with. Any basement-dwelling nerd will tell you that the best sci-fi makes the viewer/reader analyse and re-think the political and social world in which they live. Affleck and his team of blustering, bickering blokes are aiming to achieve this throughout the film, under the cover of science fiction, as opposed to, say, an invasion, an atom bomb or a military intervention (and the Western world are pretty guilty of all three of those). 

I must say before I conclude that Affleck, in my opinion, should have got more Oscar recognition for his directing. The imagery of the film, from the sci-fi symbolism, through to Affleck arriving at Tehran and walking stoically past a huge poster of Ayatollah Khomeini, is magnificent. He also does sterling work on making the film grainier than it usually would be to create a stronger '70s/'80s vibe, and it really transports the audience into the situation at hand.

Unlike Doug, I found it all to be pacy, frantic, and tense from beginning to end. The claustrophobia and terror of the hostages are felt all the way through, from the opening riot scene to a climax at the airport that puts Love Actually to shame. Okay, this isn’t a film for everyone due to its huge slab of political themes, and it’s a film that values story over character and acting. But I was gripped, inspired and touched by the end, and that’s the sign of a pretty damn worthy film.

Highlight

The opening 15 minutes, in which various American embassy workers are panically shredding official documents and telephoning for help. Meanwhile, a colossal, flag-burning crowd are clamouring at the gates. I felt like I was right there, and wondered how I would cope in such a situation.  

Lowlight

Nothing much, to be honest. Ok, this film doesn’t have the whimsy or relaxation of last week’s The Artist, but it IS a film about the Iranian Revolution, and there’s some amusing banter between John Goodman and Alan Arkin as grouchy Hollywood workers roped into the whole scheme.

Mark

10/10

84. The Artist (2011)

Plot Intro

It’s 1927. Silent film actor and heartthrob George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) is at the height of his career. He meets an aspiring actress and dancer called Peppy Miller (Berenice Bejo) who starts to have a very successful career in the new form of movie-making- talkies. Valentin, however, doesn’t think talkies will take off and dismisses it as just a fad. When he turns out to be wrong, however, his career takes a horrendous nosedive, and then the Wall Street crash occurs in 1929…

Paul says...

I remember The Artist being released and it was certainly the surprise hit of 2011. It defeated, among others, The Help, Hugo, Midnight in Paris, and War Horse; Jean Dujardin became the first and, so far, only French actor to win Best Actor; and the film was heavily lauded at various other award ceremonies around the world. This is especially impressive for a Best Picture winner, as its the first 100% black and white film to win since 1960’s The Apartment, the first film made in 4:3 aspect ratio since 1953’s From Here to Eternity, and the first French-produced film to ever win (although there are a great deal of American actors taking part in it).

And it’s an absolute delight! It’s often credited as being the first silent film to win Best Picture since the first winner, Wings, in 1927. I would pedantically contest that because The Artist has a few lines of dialogue at the end, as well as a recorded soundtrack, neither of which Wings would have had. However, The Artist is a stunning tribute to a long-gone age of cinema. Right from the font and music during the opening credits, to the way in which the scenes cutaway to each other, to the hilarious styles of acting that we see in Valentin and Miller’s films. Director Michel Hazanavicius and his team of actors and editors have superbly captured the melodrama of the acting, the precariousness of the actors’ careers, and the thrill that moving pictures would create at such an early stage of filmmaking. 

The story explores the transition from silent to talking movies with great innovation. Valentin represents the resistance to such a transition, as he’s probably aware that his career could suffer as a result. He has a nightmare in which the objects around him make sounds as he picks them up or knocks them over, but he is unable to make a sound with his voice. This seems to represent his fear that the world is moving on around him, but he remains trapped in a silent, invisible box. The film then ends with characters finally using their dialogue, representing the way in which they have moved forward with the times. Not only is this a film about cinema’s extremely rapid change from silent to sound (it pretty much went from one to the other within about 2 years), but the film itself transitions from silent to sound. I can’t help but love a bit of meta. 

The film is also aided by Dujardin and Bejo who are an outstanding leading pair. Dujardin evokes the self-assurance and charisma of Clark Gable and Errol Flynn (he even looks a lot like Gable with that pencil moustache), while Bejo has the gutsiness of Clara Bow in Wings. The two bounce off each other brilliantly, making some of the final, more tragic scenes, all the more poignant. In particular, I couldn’t help but feel a lump in my throat when Peppy Miller goes to see Valentin after he survives a house fire, and discovers that the one film reel that he saved is a scene between the two of them when they first bonded. I also liked the fact that Peppy’s career is entirely of her own ambition and skill, rather than Valentin’s work, as well as the fact that the two don’t conventionally fall in love by the end (although this is heavily insinuated), but rather Peppy helps Valentin through friendship to get back onto his feet. 

Quite frankly, the makers of this film deserved all the awards they could get. We are now conditioned to expect dialogue and sound effects to create a story, but The Artist proves that movement and music are really all you need. It steers well clear of pretension to create an involving, exciting piece of cinema, and stunning tribute to an age of Hollywood that will remain historic. Ok, it’s not going to suddenly bring back silent films, but it may well motivate you to watch some of the best from that era, and it’s a much better version of A Star is Born than, well, A Star is Born.

Highlight

The dog.

Lowlight

I have nothing- this film is perfect.

Mark

10/10

Doug says...

Here we bloody go! At last! 

In my last review I was berating the fact that the Academy constantly draw out miserable pieces that are overlong and dwell on anything that’s at all depressing. There is a distinct lack of fun in this house and I have been getting quite bogged down by how I’m not really enjoying these last few decades of films overall. 

But The Artist is a breath of fresh air. This is what cinema should be about - discovering, rediscovering, playing around, finding new (old) ways to tell stories, challenging the audience and the filmmakers to deliver something tremendous. 

If you can’t tell - I love this. 

What director Michel Hazanavicius does so magnificently, is he evokes the period, the acting style and the drama of the time with aplomb, while introducing a brand new audience to what proves to be a gripping style of storytelling that has been lost to us since the ‘30s. 

Silent film acting is not - as one might idly imagine - dull. In fact it’s thrilling, full of over-the-top poses, actors working their socks off to convey everything to you with a minimum of title-cards. I’d say about 10% of the script is actually given to you by title-cards, you pick up the rest from lip-reading and body language. This is a physical art, and everyone delivers magnificently. 

There is also a dog who deserved to be nominated for the Best Actor award and it’s a crime he didn’t get a nod (or pat). 

Actors Dujardin and Bejo are brilliant, summing up the era of the time, showing their eagerness and creativity in finding jobs and wordlessly making you love them. A moment at the end of the film where Dujardin has a gun and Bejo is frantically driving towards him is utterly tense, and the use of the title-card to say ‘Bang!’ is a masterstroke - you don’t know what’s happened, if anyone’s dead, you just know there has been a bang. It’s something pretty much un-replicable in talkies. 

I also loved the little nods to Singin’ in the Rain too which deals with the same period. Actor George Valentin’s last silent film is a Three Musketeers type thing which is exactly the same in Rain where they are forced to convert it into a talkie. 

The audience are made to work - we have to piece things together, work out relationships and understand plot lines without having it entirely fed to us. It’s not tiring but it’s engaging - I felt more involved with this film than I have many of the later ones in this series. It’s all tied together with a fantastic score (that I believe has been played live against an entirely-silent version of the film at some concert events). 

The saddest thing about this film is that it didn’t revive silent films. I’m hungry to watch our modern versions of them after this - I felt challenged and stimulated in a way that talkies just don’t cut it. By making me work things out and really get involved, I felt so much more intertwined with the plot and characters. 

Fabulous, fabulous, fabulous. 

Highlight

The entire bloody thing. This burst of creativity puts so many other entrants on this list to shame. 

Lowlight

Uggie the dog did not get nominated. However (hilariously) BAFTA responded to a call for him to receive an nomination for Best Actor with the following: ‘Regretfully we must advise that as he is not a human being, and as his unique motivation as an actor was sausages, Uggie is not qualified to compete for the BAFTA in this category.’ Bravo BAFTA, bravo. 

Mark

A splendid, cinema-affirming 10/10