"Bloody Sunday" is a blow by blow recreation of the events surrounding the shooting deaths of thirteen unarmed civilians on January 30^th, 1972 during a massive civil rights demonstration where more than twenty five others were critically wounded in a Catholic section of Northern Ireland.

The protest march was organized and led by Ivan Cooper (James Nesbitt), a Protestant elected to Parliament by his Catholic constituency, into a force of British Army regulars who were prepared for an armed conflict. The Army’s job was to uphold a ruling that forbid demonstrations of any kind, violent or non-violent. It was the protestors’ position that they were entitled to the right of public assembly as long as they were not breaking the law - they were seen as doing just that by the Crown - or Margaret Thatcher, the Prime Minister at the time - by using the methods of Martin Luther King and the American Civil Rights Movement to win the popular support of the people. There were a few lone gunmen, according to the filmmakers, who were never given the opportunity to fire on the British as well as some impetuous youths branded as hooligans who taunted the occupying force with foul language and by throwing rocks and debris at them.

The confrontation that ensued was caused by the organizers miscalculation of the military’s resolve and the British soldiers’ inability to think beyond the muzzle of their rifles and their total misunderstanding of the marchers’ intent. The result was, as the filmmakers point out, that the young and disenfranchised joined the IRA in droves giving rise to "The Troubles" in the years ahead while the government was convinced that they had heard the last of the Irish Catholics in Northern Ireland.

Veteran British writer/director Paul Greengrass has created an amazing document that grabs you by the scruff of the neck and drags you though the streets of Northern Ireland. He also puts you in the command center where misinformation is transmitted back and forth between the high ranking officers calling the shots and the soldiers who have to make the ultimate life and death decisions. "Bloody Sunday" is all the more amazing because it has the look and feel of a live newsreel. Events appear to unfold as they are being photographed. The camera hunts and pecks its way through throngs of people, gets thrown from left to right and then lurches forward with the marchers as they move onward toward their destiny. Every once in a while you have to pinch yourself to remind yourself that you are not part of the action. The effect can sometimes seem numbing, but the emotion "Bloody Sunday" elicits comes from experiencing the same confusion as the soldiers at the barricades and the frustration and outrage of the marchers when they become victims of the ineptitude of the British High Command.

Copyright 2002.

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