Hey folks, Harry here... We've heard about BLOODY SUNDAY before, but when a genius reviews it... We must pay attention. Here's Ed WooD with the story...
ED WOOD reviews BLOODY SUNDAY
Depicting Northern IrelandÃs ìtroublesî onscreen has always been a notoriously tricky procedure. First off, thereÃs the threat of offending half your target audience. Republicans will not sit by and watch a drama depicting the victory of the notoriously brutal Black And Tans, and similarly, Loyalists will be hard pressed to endure a state-produced dollop of IRA propaganda masquerading as a character piece. Personally, I have never found anything in these so-called ìtroubles-dramasî to persuade me to endure a repeat viewing. Often, they are overly sentimental, clichÈ-ridden and horribly, horribly patronising. About as patronising, in fact, as an American movie star who has never set foot in the North come to Ireland and proclaim his or her support for the IRA.
But, as with everything, there are exceptions to the rule. Jim SheridanÃs compulsive, fiercely emotive In The Name Of The Father, dealing with the wrongful imprisonment of the Guilford Four, four Irishmen accused of bombing a pub in London, is not only the best of the Troubles-Dramas, but simply one of the best political prison movies cum courtroom dramas in the world. John Grisham, for one, would learn a lot by studying that particular masterpiece. But, and amazingly it actually brings me joy to say it, there is another movie, if not quite up to the standards of ITNOTF, then at least bloody close!
In 1972, a civil rights march in the city of Londonderry was brought to an abrupt end when a botched military campaign resulted in 13 protesters dead and many more wounded. Lets get this straight, as far as the loyalist/republican divide goes, I am neutral. But surely anyone with an eye in their head can see the nature of the gross injustice carried out here. This was NOT an IRA march, simply a civil rights demonstration that the British government couldnÃt bear to see going ahead.
In the capable hands of writer/director Peter Greengrass, the horrific events of Bloody Sunday return to smack the world in the face anew. In the grip of a lesser talent this could have resulted in a patronising mess, but Greengrass expertly reviews the facts in a pseudo-documentary style, and lets the audience make their own mind up.
The star of the show is, undoubtedly, James Nesbitt, playing local politician and organiser of the march Ivan Cooper. Cooper was Protestant born, something the script goes out of its way to state, and Nesbitt plays him perfectly, coming across as a Northern Irish equivalent to Ghandi or Martin Luther King. Cooper was a civil rights pioneer in the way that sectarian, separatist dragons like Gerry Adams or Ian Paisley never will be, a man with no loyalty to parlamilitaies from either side, who was simply fed up with the injustice he saw his friends and family endure every day.
I have always been wary of Nesbitt, seeing him as an actor who rarely wrenched any emotion from my heart, or any intellectual stimulants from my brain. Here, however, I have been forced to eat humble pie and recognise him as an actor in the class of Daniel Day Lewis. It truly is a tour-de-force performance. And lets not forget about the supporting players, who give perfectly judged performances and work as a team to make Bloody Sunday the thrilling testament it quite simply had to be.
Once the niceties of setting up character and situation are out of the way, Greengrass drags us kicking and screaming into the heart of the tension. Military roadblocks have been set up to ensure that the march cannot progress along its proposed path. Cooper, sensing the danger in proceeding, decides to re-route the march along a path with less military presence. Disaster rears its head, however, when a core element of youths decide to break away from the majority and head towards the original destination. A confrontation takes place between protesters and squaddies, and before long the already bloodthirsty soldiers proceed along the road, firing indiscriminately, taking down the innocent along with the hooligans. ItÃs a perfectly nauseating tale, wonderfully told. The following scenes of Nesbitt walking along a packed hospital corridor, desperate to find out the nature of the casualties, is both poignant and stirring. The accompanying scenes of Derry youth walking straight into the outstretched arms of the IRA, are infuriating. As Cooper says, it was quite simply the greatest victory for the IRA, and the death of the civil rights movement.
Being from Northern Ireland myself, it is a story which hits me on a much more personal level than, say, someone from Texas. But there is a universal theme at play here, a theme which simply states that injustice should not be tolerated, but also that reason is always more productive than violence. Bloody Sunday leaves me with a sense of shame that it will take a few dozen viewings of Attack Of The Clones to shake away, but some of it will be there forever, and that, I feel, is Greengrassà greatest triumph. This is intense political drama of the kind Oliver Stone used to be good at. Unflinching, humiliating, unignorable, unforgettable.
ED WooD
