There are parts of American history most of us wish never happened. Parts that haunt us to this very day. Parts that, no matter what we do, will always be a demon we will have to live with. Slavery is the biggest example of this, the abominable practice that made African-Americans do intense labor in exchange for being treated like property and worse, solely because of their race. Many films, especially in the past year, have tackled this subject, but none have gone as in-depth into the matter as 12 Years A Slave. This is a film that is difficult to watch, at times impossible to comprehend, and yet conjuring up such emotions in us, shows it’s power as a piece of cinema. In it’s 134 minute runtime, it shows us the hideousness of slavery, in a way that few will soon forget.

Solomon Northup (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is a free man living a comfortable life up North, when he is kidnapped and forced into slavery. All the pain and suffering he undergoes at first is mere nothingness compared to the cruelty he suffers at the hands of Edwin Epps (Michael Fassbender). As the years pass, he knows he must get back to his family by any means necessary, but every day that passes makes his chances of finding freedom again more and more slim.

There are movies that must have been impossible to film and 12 Years A Slave must have been one of them. The atrocities committed by some of the actors in this film are sickening to watch, made all the more horrifying by the fact that the situations presented were commonplace in that day and age. Actors like Paul Giamatti and Paul Dano are given some truly despicable things to do in this script, but it’s not until Fassbender appears that the true gravity of the depravity is known. The human embodiment of evil, Epps manipulates not only his slaves, but his wife to do his will, to make sure everything fits his arrogant stature. Using Christianity as a crutch for his evil deeds, he makes our protagonists existence truly horrendous, and while it couldn’t have been easy to do, Fassbender is to be commended for committing to this nefarious man, who shows the kind of cruel treatment of African-Americans endured in no uncertain terms.

Aside from Fassbender, there are two other performances that deserve commendable mention; those coming from Chiwetel Ejiofor and Lupita Nyong’o. As the main protagonist, Ejiofor is heartbreaking in his role here, with the hope of seeing his loved ones again being the only thing that carries him through the atrocities he endures. Being a relatable everyman, Ejiofor makes every movement Northup shows one of desperation and sorrow. It tears you to pieces knowing a man like this has to suffer for 12 years and Ejiofor is able to let us feel the atrocities Northup is going through due to his excellent acting. Nyong’o on the other hand, playing Patsy, a slave fancied by Edwin Epps, has an exterior that seems to be agreeing with her circumstances, but in one of the film’s best scenes, she shows the tortured interior of her character and how much her days as a slave are destroying her. Her performance alone is an emotional experience like no other and simply devastating to witness.

Director Steve McQueen handles all these actors with perfection, and he actually shows some inventive ways of setting up various scenes in the film. The fact that he handles this kind of material on its own is a victory in and of itself; the fact that he makes it such a harrowing and gripping one is nothing short of monumental. Not easy to watch in any shape or form, this is still one of the most important movies all year and is a reminder of one of the darkest periods in our country and all the suffering and woe it brought.