Saw it last night too and was oddly disappointed. Incredible story (in the true sense), well acted, well shot and moving but ultimately unsatisfying. It’s worth seeing for sure and hard to watch several scenes but too many themes are left only partly developed IMO. Need to be careful with spoilers etc, but every main act and theme have IMO been developed more powerfully in other films. In this case, it simply moves on to the next one * in what seems to be an attempt to include too many aspects of slavery in one go. As a result, there is a long series of stories all left at a level that ultimately disappoints. At the end of the film, the three of us concluded, glad we came, hard to watch for sure in places , new aspects or slavery that we learned about and made us angry but ultimately something was missing. It was like going to a top restaurant for a taster menu and feeling nice but three/four better developed courses would have been more satisfying.

Having said that, I reckon it’s as shoe in for oscars. It’s that kind of film.

Brad Pitts cameo is another example of something else being fitted in without adding to the core story IMO.

* the hanging scene being an exception. The length of that shot, his feet, the fact that the other slaves just got on with their business through fear etc developed the horror of the moment. Too often other scenes failed to match this (Patsy and the post perhaps excepted)

I would like to read the book and would expect it to be more powerful and developed.

As a film, it needs more of that even though it was difficult to watch.

Even the next scene when cummerbatch sends him away – there is a build up of tension with the expected violence and then nothing. Cut to next scene. Ditto the aftermath of the patsy/post scene.

Tina Fey and Amy Poehler nail it at 7:58 into their monologue:

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjmhcQv3–M[/video]

I haven’t seen it yet but read this article which is more about technical aspects of the film (including the long no-cut scenes) but I thought it was interesting.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/entertainment-arts-25713841

opps, sorry lifer, well spotted.

Yes, silent cineman and I cant remember moving at all. That must be a good sign!

I only need the answer to one question. Are there any exploding helicopters?

wonder if an American director will ever cover the British place in slavery?

Finally saw this last night (at DD’s favourite middle-class cinema 😉 ) & I agree with the mixed reviews above (multiplicity of themes, Brad spelling it out…). It’s ultimately carried by the hugely impressive performances of Chiwetel Ejiofor & Michael Fassbender. With McQueen at the helm, the subject was always going to make for a powerful film, but it’s not without flaws. I mean, there’s no sense inwhich one could overplay the horror of slavery… but for all the demented brutality of Fassbender & his whip-fetish, the most effective & disturbing scene IMO was the one inwhich the slave trader (played by Paul ‘Sideways’ Giamatti) touted & sold his goods – humans exchanged in commercial transactions, humans as property. McQueen nailed ‘the point’ perfectly in that scene, (and in numerous small moments – such as the brief glimpse we get of Omar from The Wire, the near-hanging, or when Solomon stumbles into the lynch mob).

Slavery wasn’t just rape, torture & murder: it was a means of systematic exploitation and one which underpinned the southern economy, and as with any ‘system’ – the efficient clerks and punctual trains of Nazi Germany – it was characterised by the mundane details of process: bookkeeping, transportation, property rights… IMO, some of the force of that early scene was lost by the end of the film.