I thought this was absolutely amazing. What a film. Someone I'd just met was telling me how it wasn't as good as they'd thought it was going to be etc. etc. "bit disappointed" and I thought "wow, I'm going to have problems trusting any of your opinions or anything you say to me". I think it's a film that will have historic importance.
A couple of points:
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- At the end, I got the sense that even though, in a sense it's a "happy ending" - he's home, holding the next generation of his family in his hands etc. - you can't ever really come home after that. The trauma is so intense that those scars won't fade. So the "happy ending"/Hollywood premise is completely undermined. It made me think of the way we report current affairs - y'know, a conflict is now "resolved", people are happy, businesses resume trading etc - and the whole long-lasting inter-generational effect of (say) what we've been complicit in in Iraq is skipped over.
- The way the ethos of slavery is gradually internalised. Intelligence is hidden and even the posture gradually becomes more and more bent over, subservient. Slavery is written into the body. Not just through the overt brutality but in these covert, subtle ways.