January 30, 1972, is a day that will always be known as a milestone, a turning point, in the history of English control of Northern Ireland. That day thirteen people were killed by British Army and has become known as the Bloody Sunday massacre. Think back to 1983’s U2 album War, the song Sunday Bloody Sunday was about this tragic event:
I can’t believe the news today
I can’t close my eyes and make it go away.
Imagine Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood done up as raw celluloid, that’s the closest comparison I can think of for the 2002 movie Bloody Sunday. Written and directed by Paul Greengrass (who also helmed the excellent Bourne Supremacy released earlier this year), the movie is shot and structured as if the cameraman in each scene, especially those set under a roof, was wearing some type of flat camera over his left breast pocket and all he could do is turn or lean up and down. If another person walked in front or was too close ahead going up the stairs, you got to see their torso or bum. Okay, many of the exterior scenes have more conventional distance shots but that’s the only way Greengrass could give us the necessary scope and context.
What happened on this day? For me and I expect many Americans I think not much is understood about it. Two forces collided and one side had machine guns, tank-mounted water cannons and radio communications, and were itching to crack some heads while the other groups was, in the main, looking to put on a massive non-violent march of the kind put on by Gandhi and Martin Luther King though with a small leavening of hotheads and some even more violent types convinced the British government would not be swayed by anything less.
Certain members of the British Army units stationed in Northern Ireland, here the British 1st Parachute Regiment, were in fact already fed up with the level of violence directed their way, with more than 40 soldiers killed and many more wounded, and were inclined to see any large gathering of Catholics as trouble waiting to happen. These men went into play on that Sunday morning armed and more than ready to respond in kind. No one who fired a shot was given the least of reprimands from the inquiry convened immediately afterwards.
The Derry Civil Rights Association, led by their (Protestant but in love with a Catholic woman) Member of Parliament Ivan Cooper (played by James Nesbitt, who also did the title character in BBC America’s Murphy’s Law series), was adamant about this march taking place and without violence. Several times in the first act Cooper goes to talk with Provos and other dangerous men and begs them to stay away, if just for one day, and also speaks with local police chief to emphasize their intent.
But in a crowd so large, with so many men on edge, trouble is nearly impossible to avoid and so this day became a tragedy, beyond the deaths and injuries of the day, because many Irish Catholics decided the British would never make an honest deal unless driven to it. Thirty three years later, people are still trying to find that deal and perhaps are even close to it but over this span many have given their lives and bodies.
Getting back to the movie, I don’t think anyone can be certain of the precise details of the day and so more knowledgeable people (which would probably also mean more biased) have probably quarreled over the depiction but it does seem reasonable to me. Characters on both sides are portrayed with misgivings ahead of the clash and regrets afterwards though the senior British officer, Major General Ford, is shown as indifferent to the casualties as are a number of the soldiers who caused them.
Greengrass, who was born in England and was 16 on the day, does show the soldiers consciously shooting at unarmed marchers, putting a finishing bullet into one man already hit and another into a man waving a white handkerchief so he could bring one of the wounded back to a sheltered position. Even soldiers who object to the mission plan and try to convince others its a mistake in the end go along and lie to investigators.
The movie is very harsh, hard for it to be otherwise, but the cinematography and soundtrack are matched to the action, with handheld shots jouncing and accented voices jarring–at times incomprehensible to these American ears–and the overall sense of everthing being rushed, alternatives and options ignored is strong.
definitely recommended
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