"Bloody Sunday" creates almost unbearable tension as director Paul Greengrass recreates the tragic events of 30 January 1972 in Derry/Londonderry, Northern Ireland, when thirteen unarmed demonstrators were shot dead by soldiers of an elite British parachute regiment. There have been a number of cinematic treatments of the Northern Ireland conflict -- Jim Sheridan's "In the Name of the Father" (1993) is probably the best-known -- but "Bloody Sunday" remains unique because of the restraint with which the story is told. The events of Bloody Sunday are allowed to speak for themselves, increasing the dramatic impact of the film.
Paul Greengrass's directorial style seems to be a deliberate choice of minimalism. I'm not sure whether to call it cinéma vérité or something else. In many ways, it reminds me of the Dogme 95 school of filmmaking, set forth back in the 1990's by a group of Danish directors led by Lars von Trier. The Dogme directors committed to following a strict set of rules -- e.g., hand-held camera only, no music without a practical on-screen source such as a radio -- all of which were meant to make sure that what appeared on screen would feel more real, less stylized. Greengrass seems to be following at least some of these rules, and his doing so gives the film a documentary-style realism. The abrupt fades from one scene to the next leave the viewer feeling perpetually off balance.
(Special note to American viewers: The accents that one hears in the film -- not just Northern Irish accents, but also accents from different parts of England, Scotland, and Wales -- are rather strong. When I showed this film for a class at Penn State, my students asked me to activate the subtitles so that they could understand better.)
James Nesbitt plays Ivan Cooper, the real-life Protestant politician who sought to build a multi-religious coalition of people who would march together for civil rights, and for an end to the endemic and systemic discrimination that the Catholic minority in Northern Ireland then faced. American viewers who know Nesbitt only as the hapless but likable hog farmer Pig Finn in "Waking Ned Devine" (1998) will here see him playing a very different sort of character -- a confident, forceful, dynamic leader, optimistic that he and the people he is leading are on the right side of history. When an IRA leader says, "Marchin's not gonna solve this thing," Ivan's reply is a succinct, "Watch us." Ivan and his supporters, following the example of the American Civil Rights movement, emphasize their commitment to non-violence, and sing "We Shall Overcome" as they make their way among the poverty-stricken flats of the Bogside; and their optimism is touching precisely because we know that, on this day at least, it is unjustified.
The factors that will contribute to the tragedy of Bloody Sunday are many. A small group of lads, militantly opposed to the British presence in Northern Ireland, seem motivated at least as much by mischief as they are by politics. The British soldiers of the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment (1 Para), forever cooped up in their Saracen half-tracks as they roll through hostile nationalist neighborhoods, are tired of being taunted, and their supervisors assume that the march will be marked by violence and hooliganism. The audience senses at once the inappropriateness of an elite offensive military unit being deployed in a domestic peacekeeping role. British General Ford (played by Tim Pigott-Smith), calling for get-tough measures against the Catholics (whom he doesn't mind telling jokes about), is portrayed as a personification of aristocratic hauteur; his immediate subordinate, Brigadier Patrick MacLellan (played by Nicholas Farrell), has official tactical command of the British response to the march, and wants to handle the banned march with "minimum force," but seems to have no real power as long as Ford is around. The practical, experience-based perspectives of the city's Chief Superintendent Lagan (played by Gerard McSorley) are blithely ignored by the arrogant Ford.
The film's pale, desaturated color scheme adds to its air of realism, as angry young nationalists break away from the main parade, and 1 Para soldiers, anxious to kick some arse, start shooting. The image of a march steward's corpse, draped in a bloodsoaked "Derry Civil Rights Association" banner, speaks volumes. As Lagan angrily asks MacLellan, "You call *that* minimum force?"
Yet the film does not end with the shootings. It is striking to see Private Lomas, the one conscience-stricken member of the 1 Para unit that fired upon the protesters, trying to decide whether to tell the truth as the members of a military board of inquiry ask, "Were all the rounds fired in accordance with the yellow card?" General Ford washes his hands of the affair, placing a stricken-looking MacLellan in charge of the inquiry while stressing that "My role on the day was purely as an observer." We hear a heartbroken Ivan Cooper say to the British government, "You've destroyed the Civil Rights Movement. And you've given the IRA the biggest victory it will ever have." In the darkened hallway of an apartment building, we see IRA gunmen handing weapons to new recruits, and we know that what is still called "the bloody watershed" in Northern Ireland, one of the worst periods of the civil conflict there, is about to unfold.
Greengrass's minimalist style perfectly complements this heartbreaking story, and the DVD contains one particularly haunting extra -- an interview between actor James Nesbitt, who played Ivan Cooper, and the real-life Ivan Cooper, conducted in the part of Derry where the Bloody Sunday shootings occurred. The contrast between the peaceful, post-Good Friday Accord city of today and the urban battleground of 1972 is striking.
Much has changed since 1972, and even since this film's release in 2002. In contrast to the 1972 Widgery Report that largely exonerated the British Army, the Saville Inquiry, published in 2010, concluded that British troops had "lost control" and fired on unarmed demonstrators, and British Prime Minister David Cameron offered an official apology on behalf of the British Government. While there is still plenty of tension in Northern Ireland, especially during the summertime "marching season," the peace established by the Good Friday Accords has, in the main, held. "Bloody Sunday" reminds us of a past that Northern Ireland will hopefully never return to, and draws a singularly powerful picture of the ways in which, in any politically volatile society, tragic events can take on their own momentum.