2003-04-13

Before I saw this film, I had only the vaguest idea of what had happened on Jan. 30, 1972. All I knew was that there had been a protest against Britain�s occupation of Northern Ireland, and that at the end of the day many of these protesters had been shot and killed or wounded.

Now, thanks to Paul Greengrass, I know one side of the story a lot better. It�s the side of the story I tend to believe, not because I am connected to the Irish cause in particular, but because the story reiterates a lot of what I already believe about the groupthink mentality that comes with militarism and oppression.

Bloody Sunday tells the story of that day from the side of the civil rights marchers who participated in what was supposed to be a peaceful protest march. The movie is shot in pseudo-documentary style which is so well-done that for a moment, at the beginning of the film, I thought I was actually watching documentary footage. The film looks gritty and washed out, and the use of hand-held cameras adds to the sense of verite.

The movie covers the events of one twenty-four hour period, which is one of the things that makes this movie seem so tightly paced. It�s a stressful movie to watch; the tension builds rapidly because any viewer with the most rudimentary knowledge of Bloody Sunday knows what�s going to happen during the protest march. We see the civil rights activists as they plan their march despite the fact that it�s been banned by the British army, and we see the military as they mill about getting ready for the march, anticipating violence and getting ready to teach the rabble-rousers "a lesson." Greengrass is very effective at showing the hair-trigger nervousness and excitement of the soldiers, which eventually leads to tragedy.

The movie is very partisan and makes no apologies for it. I think that this was a wise decision. It would have watered the story down greatly otherwise. Greengrass does flip back and forth between the two sides, and does a good job at showing the hesitation of some of the more intelligent, prescient army leaders, but in the end, all we see is how completely ineffectual they have been in preventing what is essentially a civilian bloodbath. We also see the creeping evil of a military cover up: although the British soldiers claim that they were fired on, they can�t produce any weapons, and resort to planting explosives on an innocent young man in a car who dies from lack of medical attention.

I knew what to expect during the movie�s climactic scenes, but that didn�t stop me from being utterly shocked and grieved by the scenes of citizens being shot as they tried to run away from the heavily armed soldiers. There is one particularly upsetting scene where a wounded man is shot again at close range when he is already down, and another man is shot in the head as he is waving a white handkerchief. I�m no stranger to movie or TV violence, but the events in Bloody Sunday are so realistically portrayed that it�s easy to forget you�re watching a recreation of events, rather than the events themselves. Part of the realism probably stems from the fact that many of the volunteer extras in the film who make up the civil rights marchers were actually there on the real Bloody Sunday, and are, as Roger Ebert has noted, essentially playing themselves. One can only imagine how that must have felt for them. In fact, Bloody Sunday is still such a controversial topic that the march scenes were shot in Ballymun, in the Republic of Ireland, rather than Derry.

I would just like to add that I was very impressed by James Nesbitt�s performance as Ivan Cooper, the minister of parliament who was a vital part of Derry�s Civil Rights movement. His idealism and integrity shine from the screen, as do his disbelief and shattered hope at the end of the day. Nesbitt has the best line of the entire movie, where he states at a press conference that what the British Army have done is ensured that young Catholic men will start signing up in droves for the IRA��You will reap a whirlwind,� he says�and his words reflect the scene we see a few minutes earlier, where a solemn group of survivors line up in a dark, dank hallway to receive their weapons. It�s a grave reminder of the conflict and real terror that have plagued Northern Ireland until the present day. It�s also a reminder of what can happen when people are denied the right to peaceful protest. I�m not sure I�ll ever be able to participate in a protest march again without thinking of this movie.

Posted by polarcanuck at 11:04 p.m.

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