12 Years A Slave

Popcorn. The sweetener administered as the antithesis to the harrowing account of slavery; one of humanity's gravest atrocities.

Steve McQueen's direction was superb. The balance of portraying the dehumanisation of people in as real a way as possible vs doing so in such a way as rendering it impossible to watch, must have been a continuous tightrope to walk.

In 1977, or thereabouts, I was 7/8 years old and I watched Roots. From that moment on, even though I didn't know how to make sense of it all as a child, I carried the burden of shame so in that respect the film compounded that feeling.

What I did feel was portrayed with a sharp insight and attention to detail, was a telescopic view into the human capacity to destroy, to hate, to love and to survive. The tragedy and the wonderment of this is, of course, that we are all human, so we have the capacity for it all....