There is nothing to say after seeing this movie. You watch it. And when people ask you what you thought, you are speechless.

Ever since the credits began rolling, I have not been able to shake some of the images from my head. The heart-breaking, real portrayals of what happened in our country’s past is overwhelming.

12 Years introduces us to Solomon, a free man in the North who is kidnapped and sold into slavery in the South. The rest of the story tells of his 12 year long attempt to get back to his family in the North. He encounters many on his way, and is bought and sold between slave owners that demonstrate the varying types of attitudes toward slavery in the South during that period. With characters portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch and Michael Fassbender, we are given an array of experiences that stick with us.

12 Years A Slave puts faces on our collective past. It humanizes the stories and the history we’ve read about for so long. It allows us a glimpse into the realism of the horrific acts committed by human against human.

This movie’s purpose is to affect its audience. And so it does. I cannot say much else. I’m still processing what I saw.