Movies

Paul Greengrass directs this dramatization of the civil rights march that ended with British paratroopers killing 13 civilians, kicking off the long and bloody civil war that engulfed Northern Ireland for the next 30 years. Greengrass manages to do justice to the events despite his terrible visual style that involves an insanely shaky camera and hundreds of pointless jagged edits. This is largely chalked up to "documentary realism", but no documentarian would be happy with a film that consciously draws attention to it's own stylistic quirks and away from the events depicted in the film. James Nesbitt stars as Ivan Cooper, a politician who organized the march and bore witness to much of the slaughter. He does a magnificent job of depicting hope and optimism dying.

Obviously an important day in history, and the events of that day are breathtakingly conveyed by the best Docudrama filmmaker we have, Paul Greengrass, Before we Knew who he was-and that may have made a certain difference in my experience of the film-it was more exhilarating (and impressive) before Greengrass had made a name for himself at this kind of documentary-styled filmmaking. This one, when it came out, definitely gave me goosebumps....todd gold

Normally I don't enjoy the handheld documentary style films, as they tend to induce waves of nausea, but Bloody Sunday had me riveted from the word go. That we already know how it's going to end is irrelevant, the pressure building on the day of the march is almost unbearable. Though there's been criticism that the film is slanted towards the republican point of view, I found it balanced, even in the depiction of the soldiers and officers. Everybody certainly looked the part and I went away feeling some sympathy for both sides. Given the close quarters and inflammatory nature of the conflict, it's amazing that bloodbaths like this (soldiers blasting civilians) haven't happened more often in Northern Ireland. It's only now, that retired soldiers have broken ranks and talked about what actually happened, that a film like this can see the light of day.