The Ugly : BLOODY SUNDAY - Paul Greengrass

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, 30^th 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 29^th, 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.