Review

Derry Streets Become Filmic Stage in Portrayal of Human Emotions

By Dan Hintz
Irish American Post Film Critic

On Jan. 30, 1972, the streets of Derry became the stage for violent choreography written by the specters of Northern Irish history. Director Paul Greengrass has captured that macabre dance in his new film, Bloody Sunday. 

Following a day in the life of a national tragedy, British soldiers shot 27 people and killed 14 unarmed civilians during an anti-internment civil rights march. This single act ignited a bonfire of sectarian violence, defining a generation and fueling a 25-year cycle of atrocities.

Called by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association, which gave birth to the Irish civil rights movement in 1968, the march was set to begin at Bishop's Field in the Creggan Catholic suburb and march to Guildhall, the seat of Protestant power in Derry. The purpose of the march was to protest a recent ruling by the British government setting up internment without trial.

When the Association announced their intentions to march, the Unionist Government, the British Army and the British Government were determined to not only stop the march, but also be seen to stop the march. The struggle for power was soon to be played out on the street.

As part of the plan developed by Brigadier Patrick MacLellan (played inthe film by Nicholas Farrell), Commander of the 8th Brigade covering the Derry area, Gen. Robert Ford insisted that the First Battalion of the Parachute Regiment (Paras) be used as the arresting force. The Paras had developed a nasty reputation in Belfast for their brutality, and now they were being sent to Derry. A target of 500 arrests were made. No one knew the full ramifications of that decision until 1998, when Prime Minister Tony Blair opened a full inquiry into the incident.

Based on the research and writing of Don Mullan and his book, Eyewitness Bloody Sunday, this epic film weaves the cords of frustration, anger, prejudice, hatred, misunderstanding, friendship and love into a magnificent tapestry.

"I wanted to shoot this film as if I was actually there. To have the unfettered freedom to experience this event as it happened, as it actually unfolded," Greengrass told The Irish American Post. 

This wish most certainly sprouts from his background as a documentary filmmaker. Although a young English producer for the awards-winning British investigative series, World In Action, he was the first journalist to film and interview the hunger strikers inside the Maze Prison in 1982. It struck Greengrass that one of the hunger strikers, Raymond MacCartney, had joined the Provos in direct response to those Jan. 30 shootings.

He also received the BAFTA TV award for his work on The Murder of Stephen Lawrence, a factual drama of the 1993 killing of a black student by racist whites in England.

"The real world marks you," Greengrass said of his films. and that real world seeps into the stark black and white footage of Bloody Sunday. Paying visual homage to The Battle of Algiers, a 1965 groundbreaking film directed by Gillo Pontevorco, Greengrass gives his film a sense of incredible immediacy.

By choosing to use hand-held cameras, the director also creates an intimacy to the event that leaves the viewer with a distinct metallic taste of voyeurism. A comfortable discomfort settles onto the visual palette. One wants to stop time, to tell the characters to slow down, discover patience, to listen to each other, to not go down that road. The characters don't listen. They punch forward, dragging the audience into the chaos of command posts, alleyways, City Hall and Bogside apartments. Riding the tide of violence with the stone-throwers, the activists, the generals and the private soldiers, the film bombards the audience with an overwhelming amount of experiences. But together, those experiences endeavor to build a full story of the event.

Greengrass discovers intense and beautiful human moments that could have been a maudlin plea for self-discovery. Yet, both the film and the actors are intelligent and intentional, playing brilliantly their balanced roles of story and storyteller. 

James Nesbitt brings an amazing amount of discipline to his character of Ivan Cooper, the Protestant MP and leader of the civil rights movement and he delivers one of the most stunning moments in the film. In the chaotic hours before the march, Cooper's Catholic girlfriend Frances confronts Ivan in the hallway of the City Hotel. The honesty of that simple interaction between Kathy Kiera Clarke (Frances) and Nesbitt allows the scope of The Troubles to be played out on a micro-level. A believable and natural history of stolen hours, impossible love and furtive glances over the shoulder is established in Clarke's measured gestures and Nesbitt's hushed tones.

Nesbitt did an enormous amount of research on his character. And he had to. Greengrass wanted realism to trump staged fiction, so many of the scenes were improvised, including the press interviews given before and after the march. Not knowing what questions were going to be asked of him, Nesbitt had to understand the full storyline of Cooper. "I've made such a personal connection to this man (Cooper)," Nesbitt stated, and then added, "This film is a defining moment in my career." 

Bloody Sunday is a war film of history battling itself, of governments losing control and the smallest moments of human truth.

"It's a day we don't want to forget and a day we don't want to remember," Greengrass stated, and he intentionally blurs that DNA buried deep in both British and Irish cultures. Bloody Sunday is a very difficult film to forget.