A Chaotic Movie About A Chaotic Event

Rating: 3/10 (23 December 2010)

"Bloody Sunday" is a movie that might be best described as chaotic - which is surely not inappropriate for any movie dealing with the tragedies of Northern Ireland and in particular with the events of January 30, 1972 in Derry. This TV production was filmed in a quasi- documentary style, which perhaps added a touch of reality to what was happening but which, to me, also failed to engage. It largely follows the efforts of the Irish Catholic Member of Parliament Ivan Cooper to organize a peaceful protest march through the streets of Derry, only to be forcibly confronted by the British military. Cooper seems to have modelled his "Civil Rights Association" after figures who were noted for non-violence - particularly Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. There's absolutely no doubt here that the movie takes sides - it's pro-Irish Catholic and anti-British Army. I don't know that I'd go so far as to declare it pro-IRA, though. The IRA doesn't actually get mentioned very often, the emphasis being on the contrast between the desire of the protesters for a peaceful march and the apparent over-reaction of British troops. The movie is far more interesting in its second half, once the confrontation begins. The lead up to the confrontation really didn't capture me all that much, but the events of the actual confrontation were realistically and graphically recreated.
I suppose that now (in 2010) before one falls into the trap of declaring this pro-IRA (or at least anti-British) propaganda, one has to take into account the results of the Saville Inquiry, which were made public in June 2010 and led to an apology from David Cameron - the British Prime Minister - in response. The closing captions of the movie certainly make clear that the sympathies of the producers were with the protesters.
I didn't consider this to be a great production, but it certainly gives a hint of what feelings were like in Northern Ireland in those troubled times, and it raises a lot of unsettling questions about the use of violence and what it accomplishes.