I may have had my issues with 12 Years, but there's no denying that it was, overall, a powerful and well-directed film. However, I went into it fully cognizant of the brutality of slavery, so for me, it lacked revelation and a clear, specific narrative. Django also very vividly captured the brutality of slavery, but as I've already pointed out, it offered a daring twist on the formula. Roots was about generational trauma and the story of one man's lineage told in multiple episodes and a sequel miniseries. North and South, told from the White POV, was about how slavery tore apart White families as well as Black ones, though in a different way.

I introduced the idea of "torture porn" in my discussion of 12 Years, because, to me, it felt like it was all about showing us how awful slavery was. Being based on a book, it had access to this unique Odyssean story about a man's journey from freedom to captivity and back to freedom, and how it affected his psyche, but the movie almost made him a side character in his own story. I wrote a longer essay about this years ago after watching the film, and I mentioned how the movie didn't really give him a backstory. We didn't get to see much of his life before he was captured. We didn't get to see much of how the family fared while he was gone. We got a brief reunion scene at the end and that was it. His story kind of got lost in the mix, which was overwhelmed by the brutality. I wish the movie had let us get to know him better. Maybe then I would have been invested in his plight beyond the standard "How awful!"

Anyway, I do appreciate your respectful responses. I know that when I criticize this film, I'm firmly in the minority.