Well Deserved Praise

Purely Joyful Movie!

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review

Both sides concur that the eponymous civil rights demonstration in Derry, Northern Ireland, ended with a skirmish between some of the demonstrators and British army paratroopers. Ultimately, 13 demonstrators were dead and 14 in the hospital, one of whom later died. None of the casualties were British troops. A formal inquest proclaimed that the soldiers had defended its position against armed demonstrators. Some of the soldiers involved were later honored by the crown.Outside this understanding, there's a dispute so profound and indignant that three decades later Bloody Sunday is still an open gash in the lingering, disputed account of the British in Northern Ireland. Paul Greengrass' Golden Bear-winning film is shot on 16mm, made in the manner of a documentary. It encompasses roughly 24 hours, beginning on Saturday evening, and its central character is Ivan Cooper, a civil rights organizer in Derry. He was a Protestant MP from the nationalist Social Democratic Labour Party. Most of the 10,000 demonstrators on that Sunday would be Catholic. That a Protestant led them reveals the separation in the north between those who stood in unity with their co-religionists, and those of all beliefs who just wanted the British out.Cooper is played by James Nesbitt as a completely excellent guy, hopeful, diligent, who walks boldly through hazardous streets and has a good remark for everyone. He knows the day's demonstration has been prohibited by the British government but anticipates no conflict, as it will be diplomatic and peaceful. As Cooper distributes flyers in the streets, Greengrass intercuts measures by the British army, which is fully resolute to take a muscular position against "hooliganism." Several British soldiers have been killed by the IRA, and this is an opportunity to settle scores. The British continue giving themselves tell-tale indications of how to prevent violence when they say things like, "If they see the Paras, that'll inflame the situation." So basically, the people demonstrating for their rights will only become violent if the troops try to stop them from demonstrating for their rights. Which they do. So the British knew the truth before the atrocity even occurred.Greengrass also establishes some other characters, including a young man who kisses his girlfriend goodbye and assures his mother no hurt will come to him, classic threatening omens in a movie. And we meet the Derry police chief, troubled by the ferocious doggedness of the soldiers and asks, not irrationally, if it wouldn't be more prudent to just allow the march because it's clearly going to carry on anyhow. Greengrass reconstructs proceedings with striking realism. When he shows a movie marquee promoting the Schlesinger film Sunday Bloody Sunday, it's a tiny anomaly, a deliberate shot in a movie that aims for cinema verite. He's served by the incidence of thousands of volunteer extras, some having demonstrated on Bloody Sunday and are relatively playing themselves.Cooper and the other influentials are on a truck which pilots the procession, and from their POV we can see that when the march avoids the army's spot, some hotheads instead start to throw rocks at them. At Major General's headquarters, commands are given to counter decisively. Data lines are obscured, orders are hazy as they dispatch down the pecking order, and soon rubber bullets and gas grenades are substituted by the shatter of actual bullets. Once this begins, we get the truest visceral sense of how difficult it must be to resist physical retaliation, and thus the true profundity of pacifism.Greengrass sees marchers struggling to control some of their comrades who are armed, but his film is unmistakable in its conviction that the British fired first and without mercy, and he shows one injured demonstrator being eliminated execution-style. One of the marchers is based on Gerald Donaghey, who, after being wounded, was searched twice, first by doctors, then taken to an army section where he died. Soldiers then "discovered" nail bombs on his person that had been "overlooked" in the earlier searches. This is part of a frantic effort by the army to plant evidence and validate a slaughter. OK, there are two sides to the story, but 14 dead marchers alongside a complete lack of dead or wounded soldiers seems telling. The Greengrass standpoint reproduces the rage of the anti-British groups, and the army's self-satisfaction after being acquitted in the initial investigation was simply infuriating. This raw, ultimately brutalizing tragedy is an extremely valuable vision of what occurred that day. And as an act of filmmaking, it's stunning: A sense of urgent and present-tense reality pervades every powerhouse moment.

The partition of Ireland, though contested, is defensible; the subsequent neglect by the British government of the rights of northern Catholics is not. Nor is the shooting, on what has been termed "Bloody Sunday", of unarmed protesters objecting to the absence of these rights. Moreover, these events disastrously but understandably strengthened the roots that the I.R.A. was able to put down in the Catholic community. An initial enquiry vindicated the soldiers; but many felt this a whitewash, and Paul Greengrass's film shows an alternative version of events, based on extensive research. What we see, messily and unmelodramatically, is not a clean fight between good and evil - the demonstration was certainly hostile and not entirely peaceable - but a grotesque tragedy resulting from a self-fulfilling belief on the part of the army that they were already at war. The verdict might be incompetence rather than murder; but when the incompetence is itself premeditated, the difference is a fine one. To make a film effectively endorsing one of Irisah Republicanism's more potent claims was a brave move by I.T.V.; but a more recent enquiry has largely confirmed its accuracy.

Greengrass brings his own brand of Cinema Verite to one of the UK's most notorious and shameful episodes in living memory. The iconic image of one brave soul waving a white hankie as he carries a wounded comrade is faithfully recreated, signaling the director's intent to give an interpretation, but an accurate interpretation, of the events that unfolded that day.The film's documentary-style works, just as it does in United 93. That film famously cast unknowns so as not to detract from the power of events. Here, Nesbitt's presence does at times seem jarring, but only in the early moments as he goes on to give an outstanding performance as the convivial Ivan, overwhelmed by a massacre no one could have predicted. The panic of the crowd, the echo of the shots being fired, the incredulity of the reactions - all are believable, and powerfully so. Were the Paras as deliberate and calculating as the film makes out? Isn't there a chance this was a few low IQ numbskulls whose ill-discipline got out of hand? The portrayal of the UK military in particular marks this film out as polemical in its handling of the material. However, given the obfuscation and emotion swirling around Bloody Sunday, how could it be otherwise? Anyone interested in history who thinks they can get it from a film should not be allowed to handle sharp cutlery. However, as a start point to generating curiosity about this event, the film is well-executed. Hopefully, it can be used to begin the social education of future generations as The Troubles start to slip from living memory. Greengrass has made this niche of film-making his own, and on this outing, that niche is in good hands.

having been born in England and never truly understood or been taught the full story of Ireland and England's long lasting disputes -having been raised in Australia since i was 8 and born in the 80s,after this event occurred-i watched this film to gain a solid understanding of why i came from a town thats so heavily attacked by the I.R.A -Birmingham... what i felt when i finished this film shocked me ........ i am a huge horror fan ,so the idea of me crying as i watch a film is very rare -i think three films other than this one have succeeded in my 28yrs of life- but when i ended my viewing of "bloody Sunday", i was still wiping my eyes . it is a very powerful ,well recreated retelling of the Bloody Sunday massacre and James Nesbitt was absolutely astounding and his final speech brought me to tears as i wondered why this had to occur at all .....i say this film is a must see for everyone -just like films like Hotel Rwanda , American History X ,or This is England