Paul Greengrass
Bloody Sunday

Have you ever been in a procession when things get out of hand?
Have you ever heard someone shouting "Run, run!", while a terrified crowd rushes towards you without even understanding what's happening?
Have you ever had a machine gun barrel pointed at your face?
I have. I believe it is one of the worst situations that can happen.
You only think in broken sentences, you feel cold.
This isn't happening to me.
No.
It can't be.
I am defenseless, unarmed.
I didn't do anything.
My hands are up, don't shoot.
Don't shoot, Christ.
Around, shadows running, fear that smells of gunpowder, fear that binds your teeth.
People going insane.
In front, the barrel of the gun glistens in the sun, you move, it moves, it follows you.
A soldier laughs in your face.
"Today we will kill you all".
No.
This isn't really happening.
You think of nothing else, at that moment.
Your life doesn't flash before your eyes, nothing like that.
You just want to be invisible, elsewhere.
To not have left home that day.
You think of stupid things.
You think that you need to pee and you'll go in your pants when you get shot.
Things like that.
Above all, you think that you are fragile, brittle, powerless.
That if the one in front of you has a trembling hand, you won't be here anymore.

Luckily, no machine gun fired, that day when I found myself under fire, in the smoke of charges and tear gas. But in Derry, on a cold winter's day, January 30, 1972, the machine guns did fire. Fourteen people were left lying on the ground.

"Bloody Sunday" is the chronicle of that day. It was, it was supposed to be, a peaceful march for civil rights organized by the citizens of Derry. It ended up becoming the day the IRA suddenly found itself much stronger: the citizens of Derry enlisted by the dozen, after seeing the British paratroopers shoot their loved ones. At people running with a white flag in hand, trying to help the wounded, people already hit, on the ground, finished off with a shot to the head. It was a deadly blow to the peace process in Northern Ireland, and it brought with it too many years of hatred.
Only recently did the British government admit that the victims were innocent, that that massacre was entirely gratuitous and unjustified.
Better this way: it's never too late to admit a fault. We should learn that here too...

Greengrass manages to render this icy, almost unreal panic with fierce perfection, thanks to the choice of using a handheld camera.
A technique that from "Blair Witch Project" to "Rec" to "Cloverfield" has often been used in horror cinema because it creates a very strong identification in the viewer. In this case, it serves to plunge the audience into a real-life nightmare.
"Bloody Sunday" hurts terribly, not only to those who know the dark and complex history of the so-called "Troubles," the lead years of Northern Ireland.
Because it is not fiction, it is not a video game. Here there is no joking: "Bloody Sunday" is tears of anger, helpless pain, pure terror. It hurts everywhere, in the stomach, the heart, and the brain.

Worth watching because pain keeps memory alive. If there is memory, it is more difficult to repeat mistakes.

At least, I like to think so.

Dedicated to:

Bernard McGuigan (41)
Gerard V Donaghy (17)
Hugh P Gilmore (17)
John F Duddy (17)
James Mc Kinney (34)
James J Wray (22)
John P Young (17)
Kevin McElhinney (17)
Michael G Kelly (17)
Michael M McDaid (20)
Patrick J Doherty (31)
William A McKinney (27)
William N Nash (19)
John Johnston (59)