Complex, compelling and confronting, 12 Years a Slave reignites a familiar sense of outrage about a shameful past

Oscar contender 12 Years a Slave shows the worst mankind can do versus the best one man can be.

Chiwetel Ejiofor in a scene from the film 12 Years A Slave.

12 YEARS A SLAVE (MA15+)

Rating: 5 stars

Director: Steve McQueen (Hunger)

Starring: Chiwetel Ejiofor, Michael Fassbender, Lupita Nyong'o, Sarah Paulson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Brad Pitt, Paul Giamatti

"YOUR story, it is amazing," a man says to Solomon Northup (played by Chiwetel Ejiofor) towards the end of 12 Years a Slave, "and in no good way."

It is also the type of story that Hollywood has conspicuously avoided telling in too much detail for far too long.

On many fronts, Americathe US is still coming to terms with its history as a nation that once tacitly endorsed the practice of human slavery.

A film as complex, compelling and confronting as 12 Years a Slave not only reignites a familiar sense of outrage about a shameful past, it also promotes a fresh understanding of that terrible time. Minds will be opened, perhaps even changed by what they see (and indeed, feel) here.

The film is adapted from an obscure autobiography penned in the 1850s by Northup, a successful African American musician who was abducted as a free man in 1841 and sold as
a slave.

Northup had a wife, children, a fine home, and a rewarding way of life. In the space of one night, everything was gone.

Inside a week, the former New York City resident found himself standing in a lurid shop-front down south in New Orleans, a living piece of merchandise being inspected by willing buyers.

This is a chilling scene in itself, but it only marks the first steps of a marathon odyssey into the worst of what one human being can do to another.

Solomon becomes the property of a plantation owner named Ford (Benedict Cumberbatch). Though he is what passes for a "decent" slave owner in this era - if there could be such a thing - Ford is powerless to prevent one of his own employees putting Solomon's head in a noose.

Northup spends an agonising day dangling from the limb of a tree, his toes barely touching the ground. His fellow slaves do not even look in Solomon's direction as he desperately shifts his weight to keep breathing. They know all too well they could be next.

Solomon has barely escaped the ordeal when he is swiftly plunged into another. Ford is obliged to sell Solomon to the cotton farmer Epps (Michael Fassbender), a cruel man proud of his reputation for "breaking down the belligerent".

This is where Solomon is fated to spend the rest of his time in forced servitude. Epps is as deranged as he is mercurial, and his icily disapproving wife (Sarah Paulson) is hardly a steadying influence.

Though Solomon will face the full onslaught of Epps' wrath on several occasions, so too will Patsey (a stunning featured acting debut from Lupita Nyong'o), a pretty young slave upon whom her owner is dangerously fixated.

It is no condemnation of 12 Years a Slave to label it a film that has to be fully endured to be truly appreciated. Director Steve McQueen does not back away for a moment from the vast array of harsh realities depicted here.

While the intensely graphic nature of some sequences means that this is certainly not a work for the faint-hearted, it is always a work for anyone who has a heart.

All performances rise to the occasion demanded by such exacting subject matter.

Ejiofor leads from the front with a controlled, unfailingly credible reading of what Solomon Northup must have gone through.

The character starts out in a state of disbelief, which then gives way to a lingering, almost life-threatening despair. However, there always remains a defiance to the man, which Ejiofor protects and nurtures throughout.

This resolve, almost too faint for words at times, is what passes for hope in 12 Years a Slave. Without it, the film's anguished and sustained cry of injustice would ultimately go unheard.