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Bloody Sunday is a docu-drama that unfolds a bitter day in Irish history. It is January 30, 1972, Derry, Ireland, and a peaceful march for civil rights is about to start. The plan begins to fall apart like a house of cards slowly descending onto the table. Director/writer Paul Greengrass (The Theory of Flight) proceeds to bring the audience into that day and hold on to your seat. This is not Red Dragon, this is what happened in real life. The U2 song, "Sunday, Bloody Sunday" is a constant reminder of this day. 

The main characters are two men on either side of the coin. There is Tim Piggott-Smith (always remembered for the Masterpiece Theatre production of The Jewel in the Crown) as General Sir Robert Ford, the British officer in charge of keeping the march within bounds set by the British government. On the Irish side is James Nesbitt (the television series Cold Feet) as Ivan Cooper MP, a Protestant member of the Social Democratic Labour Party, and one who believes in the Martin Luther King, Jr. way of peace marches. Neither side trusts the other, and the British, as depicted by Greengrass, are bringing in highly trained and heavily armed paratroopers ("Para's") for protection.

The day progresses. A young Irish couple think this will be just another march and plan to meet later. Young men in their middle teens (called "hooligans") are the rock-throwing kind and think it is daring to take these chances. Bit by bit the violence slowly inches upward until there is a breaking point. The marchers are to follow a lorry (truck) around a curve and to a meeting place for a rally. About half of the group does this, while the other half stay lodged in that bend in the road and this frightens the British. If I were watching an American western at this point, it was as though outlaws trapped the wagon train and there was no John Wayne or Lone Ranger to save anyone. Soon there are tear gas, rubber bullets, the Para's start firing with live ammunition, and 13 people die. 

Greengrass brings the hand-held camera into the actors’ faces so that the audience is right there. Pimples, moles and pores can be counted. Another technique that is actually over-used is cutting abruptly from one side to the other and one action scene to the other. After an hour of this, you feel as though your theater seat is being tossed from side to side.

The British were holding on for dear life to part of their Empire while the Irish chaffed after hundreds of years of foreign rule and the official inquiries into the aftermath of Bloody Sunday continue into this century. Two books you may reference for this are Dan Mulligan's Eyewitness Bloody Sunday and Eamonn McCann's Bloody Sunday in Derry: What Really Happened.

Copyright 2002 Marie Asner 
10/21/02