Shot by Both Sides
Extraordinary docudrama about Irish massacre gets at the complexities of retelling recent history
Bloody Sunday
dir.: Paul Greengrass
R, 107 min. Opening Friday at the Belcourt Theatre
Few filmmaking tasks are more difficult than re-creating recent history, especially if the events in question are still controversial. The gold standard for this type of film is Gillo Pontecorvo’sThe Battle of Algiers, commissioned by the Algerian government after that nation became independent from France in 1962. Although no one could describe the film as objective, Pontecorvo succeeded beyond all expectations at communicating the mixed moral status of both the colonial power and the terrorist revolutionaries, without arguing that they were morally equivalent.
Paul Greengrass’ extraordinary Bloody Sunday achieves the same kind of complex, nuanced advocacy. The massacre at Derry, Northern Ireland, on Jan. 30, 1972, is more than 30 years in the past. But the fate of this embattled country has not yet been decided, and “Bloody Sunday” remains a rallying call to the Catholic cause and a malicious conspiracy to Protestants. Few facts are safely out of the range of dispute: Ivan Cooper, a member of Parliament who happened to be Protestant, planned and led a civil rights march attended by thousands, mostly Catholic. The march was illegal, but professed itself to be peaceful. At some point, British army paratroopers became involved; when the dust cleared, 13 marchers were dead and 14 were hospitalized, one of whom later died. The army sustained no casualties, and an investigation concluded that the marchers had fired first.
While Bloody Sunday argues that the British attacked without provocation, placing the filmmakers’ sympathy firmly on the Catholic and Irish side, the movie’s sophisticated cross-cutting and intimate knowledge of army protocol make it far more than a propaganda piece. As presented, the attack is reprehensible, but comprehensible as well; Greengrass uses hand-held cameras for you-are-there realism, and we soon experience the dislocation, disorientation and shocking immediacy of events spiraling out of control. Just as effective are scenes of interviews from the official inquiry. Soldiers tell stories so comically simplified that the government’s report can be nothing but a constructed fiction, no matter how truthful and sincere it might have attempted to be.
James Nesbitt’s astounding portrayal of MP Cooper moves from frayed optimism to impotent desperation to a martyr’s clarity. The idealistic leader attempts to do good, but his efforts to forestall violence on this single day are doomed by the number and ferocity of interested factions. In the end, the message of Bloody Sunday is less about the righteousness of the Irish cause than the obstacles this messy, selfish world puts in the way of those who seek to improve it.
—Donna Bowman
Copout
For about an hour, Narc threatens to claim its place as one of the best movies of the past year, and one of the best police procedurals ever filmed. Writer-director Joe Carnahan takes a couple of fairly played-out premises—the undercover cop too deep into his role, the cop saddled with a corrupt partner—and finds truth in the clichés, establishing such a gritty reality that every gunshot becomes a terrifying signal of danger. Then Carnahan gets too caught up in the cheap thrill of plot twists and last-second revelations, and Narc becomes as conventional as any TV series (or maybe more conventional, given such exciting current fare as The Shield and Boomtown).
But in this case, partial credit is enough to pass. For that riveting first hour, Carnahan shows his mastery of post-Soderbergh editing techniques: He bridges scenes by letting dialogue bleed across seemingly unrelated images; he splits the screen when necessary to pack in more information; and he shifts back and forth in time with little warning, letting color-tinting and camera moves tell the audience where and when they are. Carnahan has Toronto standing in for the story’s Detroit setting, but he still creates a strong sense of location, dwelling in shabby cop apartments, overdesigned government offices and the stark slums where crime plays out.
Carnahan also gets good performances out of his two main actors. Jason Patric plays suspended undercover narcotics officer Nick Tellis, still living with the guilt over a botched mission that ended with a civilian dead, himself in drug rehab and his then-pregnant wife unsure if their relationship would make it. Ray Liotta plays rough, widowed detective Henry Oak, whose former partner’s murder remains unsolved. Tellis agrees to use his street contacts to help in the investigation, in exchange for a quiet desk job once the case is closed. But the more shoe leather Tellis puts in, the more questions he raises about Oak’s unethical crime-fighting practices, and about the dead cop he’s looking to avenge.
So long as Narc keeps the connections and motivations of its principles vague, it retains a creepy mystery, enhanced by the idea that the one element of a cop’s life that keeps him sane—his family—impedes his ability to work effectively. Once Carnahan illuminates his characters’ shadows and explains exactly what’s going on, the alluring patterns of light and dark disappear, leaving something as flat and colorless as paperwork.
—Noel Murray
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