WW FILM REVIEW
'Bloody Sunday'
An up-close look at Britain's crimes
By G. Dunkel
"Bloody Sunday" is a powerful and moving film about a
pivotal event in modern Irish history: Jan. 30, 1972, the day
that 27 peaceful demonstrators in Derry, northern Ireland, were
shot by British paratroopers trying to crush the civil rights
movement. Thirteen protesters died.
After Bloody Sunday, hundreds joined the Provisional Irish
Republican Army (IRA), which was waging a guerrilla struggle
against the British occupation. Some 4,000 people died in that
anti-colonial war, whose armed phase was suspended a few years
ago.
The film is based on Don Mullan's oral history "Eyewitness
Bloody Sunday," which gathered the testimony of 500 witnesses
and was part of a campaign that created so much pressure on the
British government that it was forced to conduct another
inquiry into the behavior of its army.
The film puts together actors and surviving "Bloody Sunday"
participants--both protesters and former British
paratroopers--for a docudrama that begins with the general in
command of the British forces informing reporters that protest
marches had been banned.
In a series of swift vignettes--separated by a dark screen,
and shot in high-contrast color with hand-held cameras--the
film follows both the civil rights organizers and the British
commanders as they discuss the best way to crush the movement
and the Provisional IRA.
The movie is taut and compelling. When the massacre comes,
it feels as if you are in the middle of it. A scene in a
hospital--with armed British soldiers guarding stacks of dead
bodies while the relatives grieve--is particularly moving.
The film convincingly depicts the heroism of the Irish
people and the hypocritical brutality of the British army. It's
hard to imagine that Paramount Classics will distribute it
widely while London is Bush's only ally in the Iraq conflict.
But a pre-release screening in New York, with no publicity, did
phenomenally well thanks to word-of-mouth.
Catch it if you can.
Reprinted from the Oct. 24, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyrighted
under a Creative
Commons License.
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