Bloody Sunday

Paul Greengrass's Bloody Sunday was a revelation in docudrama. It's riveting, gritty, chilling, sickening, but not in the least bit exploitative or overdone. In 1972, during a pro-I.R.A. civil-rights march in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, 27 unarmed civilian protesters were gunned down by the British Army, and 13 killed. Though Greengrass is obviously on the side of the Irish-Catholic demonstrators, he presents two contrasting points of view throughout the film. We see the protestors, ordinary Irish folk, lead by Ivan Cooper, their member of Parliament (a wonderful performance, full of gravity, by James Nesbitt); and we see the under-trained soldiers in British Army preparing for the confrontation, their anxiety, their disdain for the Irish “hooligans” and their confusion going in. The events are presented simply but deftly, building with tense emotion to the imminent clash.

The camera is handheld, but most importantly, not too hand-held, avoiding the jerky motion-sickness-inducing motions of The Blair Witch Project but lending the aesthetics of documentary film. And there is no music throughout, just dense soundscape and overlapping dialogue. Bravo! There is nothing I hate more than inappropriate or overdone music.

Until the end, anyways, when it faded to black and the credits started to roll. Oh no, I thought, there’s going to be a U2 song now. And there was! It took me a moment to realize that the song was, what else, Sunday, Bloody Sunday, and then I remembered that I used to love this song when I was a teenager and was really into U2. But now, I have trouble taking U2 seriously after they became ironic rock stars, then at some point, seemed to lose the irony.

But that's such a trivial digression. Bloody Sunday reminded me of every civil rights movement in history, of Kent State, Tianenman Square. It's an amazing feat of filmmaking, and having seen it, I might reconsider seeing United 93, Greengrass’s portrayal of the events of 9/11 and the plane that didn’t reach its target (though I’m still not convinced of the necessity of that film's existence). Bloody Sunday, however, is a completely necessary film, an outrage, a challenge, an impassioned shout for justice. See it!