12 Years a Slave

#90 at the time of writing.

This is the only slightly embellished true story of Solomon Northup, a free black man from New York who was abducted and sold into slavery in the mid-19th century American deep south. Director Steve McQueen's wife noted that there are more films about Roman slave Spartacus than about the far more relevant and immediate Atlantic slave trade.

It's interesting that it took a British-helmed film to really get under the skin of what it was like to be a slave in America - an unsentimental and unflinching portrait. There's all the brutality and abuse of Django Unchained (which I saw last year), but with none of the ridiculousness.

I was perhaps a little reluctant to go and see this, which reinforces my suspicion that my favourite reason to watch a film is escapism. This is the opposite of escapism. I'm not in a rush to watch Steve McQueen's critically acclaimed previous films Hunger and Shame.