Somewhat slow but gut-wrenching (***)

Rating: Null/10 (25 November 2002)

The events in Derry, Northern Ireland on January 30th, 1972 are gut-wrenchingly re-created in Paul Greengrass' "Bloody Sunday".
On that day, several hundred Irish people led a civil rights march that, somewhere along the way, became violent, and 13 Irish citizens lay dead by the guns of British soldiers (14 more were wounded, one of whom died later). To this day, what exactly happened remains cloudy. The British soldiers maintained that they were only returning fire initiated by armed marchers, but many facts seem to contradict this. "Bloody Sunday" takes the Irish point of view, in which the British had no reason to fire upon the marchers, but did so anyway.
The best thing about the movie is its style, which is that of a documentary. There are abrupt fade-outs at the end of every scene, there is no music, and the jerky, hand-held camera seems to be held by someone who is actually there witnessing these events. Many times, the camera follows behind characters as they walk, panning up and down, back and forth, as a person might actually glance around. This creates one of the most convincing "you-are-there" feelings I've ever had while watching a movie. It's effective the whole time, but especially during the 20 or so minutes when the massacre is happening. These scenes are depicted with a rawness and realism that is absolutely horrifying, like being trapped in a nightmare you can't wake up from.
The downside is that, even as intense and immediate as the film is, the first half (leading up to the massacre) drags in places. Also, the abstract "documentary" form makes it near impossible to include character development, and as a result most of the characters never really grab us emotionally, except on a life-or-death gut level. The only character who truly emerges from the crowd is Ivan Cooper, a real-life Irish civil rights leader who is trying to lead the march in the non-violent style of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but becomes aware early-on that things might get out of hand, and they do, with tragic results. He is played by James Nesbitt in a performance filled with many intriguing layers, which is hard to do, considering the cold, observational style of the filming.
One other thing, and of course it's not the filmmakers' fault, but the thick Irish and British accents made it hard for me to understand what the characters were saying much of the time. That said, though, it's never hard to understand what's happening.