Movie Review : 12 Years A Slave (2013)

12 Years A Slave (2013)

Movie Summary :

1841. Black man Solomon Northup lives as a free man in Saratoga, New York with his wife and two children, he earning a living as a violinist. On what he believes will be an out of town music gig, he is instead drugged and sold into slavery in the deep south under the name Platt as that is for who the slave trader has papers. Initially incredulous to his plight, he decides that cooperation is the best way to survive. He sees few others in the same situation as him, but slowly he is separated from those with who he has built support. This process continues over his life as a slave, as he is at the mercy of whoever his master at the time and his master's associates who work on their own priorities. He finds that cooperation generally gets one nowhere and sometimes can get one into further trouble due to jealousy. At times, he cannot take the emotional abuse, his actions which lead to physical abuse. There are also times where he thinks he can trust someone to get himself out of his plight only to be turned upon instead. But as bad as his situation is, he finds that others are in much more dire straits, they who will do anything to get themselves out of a life they feel is not worth living.

  

Moral Value : 

 

1. No one knows what life may bring

Solomon never imagined nor expected that something bad was about to happen.  The day he was kidnapped, he woke up just like he did the previous mornings of his life.  If he would have known, he would have spent time with family more, hugged his wife and kids like there was no tomorrow.

This is no different with what may happen to us.  We do not know what tomorrow will bring.  We maybe here today, but no one knows if we will still be here tomorrow.  Ever since I got into personal development and blogging, the one thing I’ve always put in mind is to live for the present because life is short.

Spend time with your family, hug your kids, tell your wife I love you, make the most of each day you are with them.  It only takes a split-second for our fortunes to make a complete turn for the worse.

2. We’re very lucky and blessed

Slavery takes away a person’s liberty and freedom.  It takes away our self-respect, our confidence, and our happiness.  I can only imagine how life would be like if I was in Solomon’s shoes yet here we are, always complaining for just about anything from the food we eat to the air conditioning in our cars.

We’re lucky to be where we are right now.  We’re lucky to have gone through college and to have a job that supports our needs.  We’re lucky to be able to do what we want anytime we want to.  Sometimes we need to see other people’s misfortunes for us to realize how lucky we are.

We all live in beautiful houses, we eat three times a day and we wear nice clothes but did we ever stop to think that there are people who doesn’t have anywhere to live?  That there are people who can’t even have a single meal for a day and doesn’t have anything to wear?

3. There are still good people out there

Solomon Northup was sold to different slave masters but not everyone was as cruel and brutal as the last one, Edwin Epps (played by Michael Fassbender).  His first master, William Ford, was a preacher and unlike other masters, he was kind and considerate.

Samuel Bass, the Canadian carpenter Solomon worked with, was responsible for his freedom.  He was the one who told the cruel Epps that black people are also human beings and not mere properties.  He even asked him what he will feel if it was his liberty that was taken away from him instead.

In our lives, we will always come across good people like Ford and Bass.  People who have nothing but good intentions toward others.  People who are willing to break the status quo and live by what they believe is morally good.

These were all white guys and in a story about slavery, white guys are usually the bad guys.

There are still good people out there despite of the times we’re living in where backstabbing and corruption has become a culture.  Just like what I said in a previous post, all we need to do is see the good in people.

4. Hope will keep us alive and moving forward

Surviving slavery, something he was not familiar to, for twelve years was no easy feat.  Anyone else would have easily given up a year after.  What Solomon had that kept him going was hope.  The hope that one day everything he was going through will come to an end and the hope that he will see his family once again was all he needed to endure the suffering and humiliation he went through for more than a decade.

Whatever problems or difficulties we’re going through, we should know in our hearts that these too will come to an end.  We may be in a place we didn’t want to be now but everything will come to pass soon.

We may be in debt, we may have lost our job, our marriage may have failed, but we should never lose hope that one day, these will all be over.  It took Solomon twelve years to get out of his ordeal but hope kept him holding on.

Is there a Solomon Northup in you?  Do you have hope that everything negative you’re going through will end soon?