Bloody Sunday, 2002
Directed
by Paul Greengrass
Coproduction
: UK, Ireland
Box
Office : N/C
Bloody
Sunday is a feature film based on true facts. It is a movie about the pacifist March
that took place on Sunday, 30th of January 1972, in Nothern Ireland,
during which people, walking for their civil rights (the March was
organized by the Nothern-Irish Association for Civil Rights, and the March was
meant to claim equality between Catholics and Protestants), were shot by English
soldiers. During the shooting thirteen people died and fourteen were wounded by
bullet shots.
For years, two versions of the story remained : according to the British, the
soldiers just shot back at the Irish demontrators who attacked them first,
according to the Irish demonstrators, the British army deliberately shot the
unarmed crowd. An enquiry was made after the event by a commission chaired by
Lord Widgery, who almost immediately absolved the British Army, concluding that it
was only responding to the attacks of the shots of the provisional IRA.
The
Irish people remained bitter towards the British about that event, even more
when the Queen decorated the paras who shot the crowd.
In
1997, Channel 4 broadcasted a documentary made by two journalists, Lena Ferfuson
and Alex Thomson, in which four soldiers anonymously said the paras shot
the people’s hips, which contradicts the official version saying that the paras
shot some precise and hostile targets. A year later, after the criticism made
against the British version of the facts, Prime Minister Tony Blair reopened
the case on January 29th, 1998, the eve of the annual commemoration of
the tragedy.
The
cinematography could almost make us think it is a documentary. Paul Greengrass
was first meant to be a photographer or had the wish to make reportages. The mise
en scène is indeed very “realistic”. In an interview, he states that Ken
Loach was certainly of a great influence on his work too.
Bloody Sunday probably represents one of the most shameful episodes of the
British army, and the Queen decorated the murderers of the event. Bloody Sunday is the first feature film
about this event, and the fact that it was
directed by a Brit is to me very symbolic of this shame Britain suffers
towards the Irish people, who were only made innocent 20 years later.
What
this movie reveals and what is also going to lead us to the next one (The Queen, by Stephen Frears) is that
British movies are often inspired by true facts that marked Britain’s history.