BLOODY SUNDAY -------------
On January 30, 1972, an Irish Catholic civil rights march in Derry came up against a British military with an agenda to arrest 500 'hooligans' and 'players.' Thirteen civilians were killed and fourteen wounded in the event which became known as "Bloody Sunday."
Writer/director Paul Greengrass ("The Theory of Flight") consulted Don Mullan, author of "Eyewitness Bloody Sunday," who had read the hundreds of civilian accounts ignored by the first official inquiry into the massacre and decided to tell his story from four points of view. The authoritarian figures on either side are Ivan Cooper (James Nesbitt, "Welcome to Sarajevo"), a Protestant Member of Parliament leading the Catholic civil rights movement, and Brigadier Patrick MacLellan (Nicholas Farrell, "Plunkett & Macleane"), the man in charge of an operation he didn't entirely support. Their counterparts in the field are Gerry Donaghy (Declan Duddy, whose uncle was the first killed on Bloody Sunday), a seventeen year old just out of prison for stone throwing, and Paratrooper 27 (Mike Edwards, an ex-infantry soldier), a young soldier whose unit fired most of the shots that day.
This powerful film attempts to tell both sides of the story within a 24 hour time frame. Greengrass gathered as many people connected with the original event as possible and filmed from within them in short segments which fade to black. The result is a startling you-are-there experience.
Introducing the young soldiers as they wait for the marchers, we're shocked by what has grown familiar, startled to be amidst armed soldiers awaiting the arrival of their own civilians. We hear the complaints of the British soldiers, who've lost 43 of their own to violence in Ireland and are constantly baited by the local youth, tempered against Para 27, who wonders that 'they're only kids throwing rocks' and that the march is for civil rights. His unit immediately demands that he be with them or against them, forcing him to throw in his lot.
Cooper, the focal point of the film, is an idealist who believes in Gandhi and Martin Luther King. He's torn in multiple directions, by the Catholic girlfriend (Kathy Kiera Clarke) thrown over for politics the night before, by the stridency of a college girl on his team, by his constituents pleading for his time, by those that would call off his march, by the IRA who scoff at his 'Westminster paycheck.' Nesbitt is the moral center of the film. He makes us feel his rising fear and desperation as a breakaway group forms to head toward the Guildhall which is cut off by British troops.
One of those youths is Gerry, who having done time now wants to stay out of trouble and marry his Protestant girlfriend, who's to meet him at 6 p.m. that night (a true death knell). When he witnesses his cousin shot, Gerry's enraged to attack. Gerry embodies the rise of the IRA ranks which occurred after Bloody Sunday.
Brigadier MacLellan is torn between duty (his hawkish superior, Major General Ford (Tim Pigott-Smith, "The Remains of the Day"), ensures him he'll stand by him, only to hand him the reigns of the resulting inquiry, stating that after all, he was only an observer) and humanism (Derry's Chief Superintendent Lagan (Gerard McSorley, "Angela's Ashes") begs him to just let the people march). Farrell shows initial misgivings evolving into sickening reality. He embodies British guilt.
Director of photography Ivan Strasburg ("The Theory of Flight") uses a grim, gray palette for his urgent hand held visuals. The fadeouts give the impression of both how we witness chaos - in uncomprehending bursts - and of memory. Editor Clare Douglas tries to balance the experience by shifting among the POVs, sometimes within mere seconds, but it is impossible to get into the mind of British soldiers as we witness them stopping to shoot those already fallen. The arrogance of power has never been more clearly captured.
In keeping with its eyewitness style, no music accompanies the images, although U2's reaction to the day is heard over the closing credits.
Greengrass' film is a gut-wrenching account of that day and all days where humans bring tragedy upon their own race.
A-
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