| RATING: | 100% |
| FORMAT: | DVD |
Excellent reconstruction of a particularly shameful day for British imperialism in Northern Ireland in the deliberate shooting of unarmed civilians. The legally-sanctioned cultural oppression of Catholics by Protestants, backed by a despairing British government, is the source of the conflict here; made worse by the political decision to murder civilians.
Highly reminiscent of the shootings carried out by Whites in South Africa under apartheid, especially Sharpeville, this film brilliantly evokes what inevitably happens when people's life goals are centered upon the exploitation of others. Such political belief systems are always maintained by the view that those you exploit are somehow genetically inferior and that the belief is somehow self-justifying.
The desire to end the Troubles in when Northern Ireland with more violence simply and inevitably led to thirty years of more. If there is a defining moment in the recent history of Northern Ireland, this must surely be it. That by killing moderates you simply admit to the moral bankruptcy of your political position with its attendant claim that there are no moderates and that all Catholics are terrorists. Reminiscent of current-day Islamophobia this has the inevitable effect of ruining any chances of civil rights for at least a generation.
Comparisons with Pontecorvo's Battle of Algiers and Attenborough's Cry Freedom are as inevitable as they are accurate as, for once, we see a truthful portrayal of Irish politics unfiltered by the needs of the British government of the day.
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