Северная Ирландия: фильмы о конфликте

Итак, фильм 1. "The wind that shakes the barley" (Ветер который качает вереск).
Ирландия, 1920 год. Борьба за независимое ирландское государство, зверства англичан, пытки, побеги из тюрем, налеты на казармы. Расстрелы предателей, которых ты знал с Рождения. Первые освобожденные города. В общем все прелести национально-освободительной борьбы. Школа самоуправления, юридическая и практическая казуистика по легатимизации "вновьвоссозданного" государства, судоустройство, романтика борьбы, переход партизан к административно-функционерной практике. Всё это на фоне идеологической борьбы двух течений в фенийском движении. (Кстати "Шин Фейн" переводиться как "Мы сами", то есть решение проблем ирландского народа исключительно силами ирландского народа). Левый национализм Конолли (к тому времени уже казненного, но имевшего много сторонников среди городских и дублинских ячеек ИРА, где были сильны пролетарские и антибуржуазные настроения) и буржуазный национализм Коллинса, так называемых "фристейтеров"(опиравшийся на землевладельцев ирландского происхождения и требовавших взятие под ирландский контроль торговли и межграничного трафика). Гражданская война этих двух течений (победа фристейтеров, при поддержке Англии, была трагична для Ирландии в долгосрочной перспективе) и многострадальный народ Ирландии посредине.
Фильм на три с большим плюсом, почти на 4 бала. Интересен, в плане фактологии, а также цитатами из исторических выступлений лидеров национального дискурса Ирландии, антироялистский и радикально- республиканский пафос (например, фраза "я не политик, я республиканец, к черту короля" была сказана сторонником левого национализма на предложение, ратифицировать половинчатый договор с Объединенным Королевством о сохранении Ирландией статуса британского доминиона – временам это верх радикализма).
Фильм 2."In the name of the father" (Во имя отца). Ольстер и Британия с середины 70-х до начала 90-х. Освещается судебный процесс "Гилфордской четвертки", причем со стороны одного из обвиняемых, Джеральда Патрика Конлона (обвинялись в терроризме и приговорены к пожизненным срокам, после 15 лет отсидки были освобождены как невиновные под давлением общественного мнения). Будни прямого управления Ольстером (после разгона парламента бриттами) тюрьма, боевики ИРА, правовой беспредел со стороны части (а как же иначе, не всех же) правоохранителей, затем "неожиданно" справедливый суд, свобода и дальнейшая борьба при помощи мирного протеста.
Фильм на твердые 4 бала. Снят, на основе реальных событий с сохранением имен, высказываний и поступков. Один из обвиняемых (Пол Хилл) после освобождения женился на дочери президента США Роберта Кеннеди, Кёртни (что показывает статус в католической общине Америки). Интересен с точки зрения понимания настроений породивших и возрожденное ИРА и "прямое управление", интересна также самоорганизация жителей католических районов Белфаста, прекрасные граффити, отличный позитивный настрой, много познавательного из жизни английского заключенного и т.д.
 Фильм 3. "Ulster" . Ольстер начала 90-х. Новое обострение ситуации, очередной разгон парламента (в Объединенном Королевстве каждая часть имеет свой нижний парламент, в случае его роспуска объявляется военное положение и вводится "прямое управление" из Лондона), танки на улицах Белфаста, гранатометчики ИРА на крышах того же города.
История боевика ИРА, попытавшегося отойти от борьбы, за которым начинают охоту все кому не лень (ИРА, англичане, полиция, родня, орг.преступность и т.д.). Идеологически очень сильный и насыщенный сюжет. Здесь и английский военный, сражающийся "за империю, которую создал мой народ", и ирландский боевик, отсидевший 25 лет в тюрьме и ненавидевший англичан так что смог забыть их язык. Ирландские протестанты, которые вместе с шотландцами вступают в "орден оранжистов" и громят католические кварталы, упрекая англичан в мягкотелости и, конечно же, бытовой конфликт во всех пластах общества.
Фильм почти на 5 балов. Интересно как британцы перенесли крушение империи (Их Украина-Ирландия, их почти Приднестровье-Ольстер), интересна психология освободительного движения, познавательна система национализма ирландского левого движения.
 Фильмы будут интересны как сторонникам имперской идеи так и сторонникам лозунга "Отделяйтесь!".В нашей ситуации уже побывали другие, может, стоит присмотреться к их словам, делам, опыту.
  Ещё:

• A Further Gesture (The Break)1996 : Rea, an imprisoned IRA man, takes part in a violent jailbreak from the Maze prison. He is smuggled out to New York where he works as a dishwasher. He becomes friendly with a South American porter and becomes romantically involved with the man's sister. Both brother and sister are part of a revolutionary cell, dedicated to the overthrow of the repressive regime in their country, but lack any basic military training. Rea trains them and draws up a successful assassination plan for them, helps them execute it and then attempts to escape with them. However, the authorities have been tailing him.
• A Prayer for the Dying 1988 : Martin Fallon (Mickey Rourke) and two fellow IRA terrorists accidentally blow up a school bus instead of a British military vehicle. Fallon's friends escape, but he, devastated by the incident, turns his back on the Cause and escapes to London, where he hopes to find safe passage to the US. Instead, the IRA and the British police tail him, forcing him to depend on ruthless gangster Jack Meehan (Alan Bates), for a passport.
• A Sense of Loss 1978 : A "searing but balanced documentary about the never-ending conflict in Northern Ireland," by the director of The Sorrow and the Pity.
• Acceptable Levels 1983 : This study of a British TV crew interviewing a Belfast family in the war-strewn Catholic district focuses upon the death of a child hit by a stray plastic bullet fired by a British soldier. The chief reporter becomes politically involved in the incident, whilst her producer is apprehensive and, once back in London, makes sure that the most indicting footage is destroyed.
• An Everlasting Piece 2000 : A comedy about selling wigs in Belfast in the 1980s. Barry McEvoy plays Colm (a Catholic) who cuts hair in a mental hospital, where he meets 'The Scalper' (Billy Connolly), a crazed Scot, who ran a toupee monopoly in Northern Ireland before losing the plot and attacking his customers. Colm and his pal George (Brian F O'Byrne, who plays a Protestant) use The Scalper's contacts to take over the franchise but then a rival firm moves in and a sales battle ensues.
  Barry McEvoy wrote the script based on stories his father told him about Belfast.
• Angel 1982 : Bleak drama of a saxophone player who witnesses his manager's murder. The film narrative occurs against the backdrop of the Troubles.
• Bloody Sunday 2001 : Bloody Sunday deals with the events that happened in Derry on 30 January 1972. During a civil rights march the British Army shot dead 13 civilian protesters and wounded another 14 people (one of whom died later in the year). The story was filmed in a documentary style that employed hand-held cameras throughout. The film deals with the 24 hour period of Bloody Sunday and thus does not cover the aftermath.
• Blown Away 1994 : An Irish terrorist escapes from jail in Northern Ireland and goes to Boston seeking revenge on an ex-comrade who had also been a terrorist bomber but left the organisation, and now works in Boston as a bomb disposal expert.
• Bogwoman 1997 : The movie is set in Derry during the period 1958 to 1969. It charts the experiences of a woman who moves to the city from Donegal as she copes with various personal and familiy pressures against the background of the emerging civil unrest and the redeployment of British troops into the area.
• Cal 1984 : Based on Bernard MacLaverty's novel about a Catholic living in a Protestant neighbourhood in Northern Ireland. He had been involved in the murder of an RUC man, but later gets a job from the family of the dead officer, and begins an affair with the dead man's wife.
• Fifty Dead Men Walking (aka: Man on the Run, USA - working title) 2008 : Based on the book Fifty Dead men Walking by Martin McGartland (2001) the film tells the story of McGartland's recruitment by the RUC Special Branch as a paid informer on the IRA.
• Five Minutes of Heaven 2008 : Dramatises the story Alistair Little, a UVF member, who spent 13 years in jail for killing Jim Griffin (21) from Lurgan on 29 October 1975. Jim's 11-year-old brother Joe witnessed the killing. Most of the drama takes place during an attempted reconcilliation 33 years later. Liam Neeson plays Alistair Little and James Nesbitt plays Joe Griffin.
• Giro City 1982 : Jackson and Finch play a filmmaker and a reporter, who set out to investigate the Irish Republican Army.
• H3 2001 : An account of the 1981 Republican Hunger Strike in the Maze Prison in Northern Ireland. The title 'H3' refers to one of the 'H-blocks' inside the prison used to house the Republican prisoners.
• Harry's Game 1982 : Harry is an undercover agent for the British army sent to Northern Ireland to infiltrate the IRA and find (and terminate) the assassin of a British Cabinet Minister. Harry is alone, the army hasn't been told he is being put in place, his wife is fed up with him and his job, and his one new friend, an Irish woman who falls for him, will be consumed by his relentless search for the assassin.
• Hennessy 1975 : Set in the Seventies, Hennessy is a Irishman who believes in peace, but who has had connections to the IRA. Hennessy's family is killed by a bomb, and he plots revenge, setting out to assassinate Queen Elizabeth of England.
• Hidden Agenda 1990 : Based on an amalgam of real scandals, the film is a fictionalised account of official corruption in Northern Ireland (set in 1980).
• High Boot Benny 1993 : Tells the story of a delinquent boy, Benny, who had to leave Northern Ireland and escapes across the border. He attends school in the Republic, and here finds the murdered body of the caretaker who had been a police informer. Benny is then later suspected of informing by the IRA.
• Hostage 1984 : Against the backdrop of the bombing campaign in Britain and the Northern Ireland Hunger Strike, a young woman joins a terrorist operation which takes three people hostage. Over the days of their captivity, she questions her own involvement and the history of Ireland which has brought her to this point.
• Hunger 2008 : The film depicts the Hunger Strike in the Maze Prison in 1981 and in particular the role of the leader of the strike Bobby Sands.
  Sands is played by Michael Fassbender who went on a medically-supervised diet to portray the final weeks of the 66 day hunger strike by Sands who died on 5 May 1981.
  The film won the Camera d'Or prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 2008 for first-time film-makers.
• Maeve 1981 : Maeve Sweeney, a young woman living in London returns home to visit her Catholic family in Belfast. Her visit prompts memories of her childhood in Northern Ireland. The story unfolds by skipping between Maeve as a young girl, as a teenager and in the present. As she enters her later teenage years, her boyfriend pressures her to take a stance on the Troubles. Unwilling to take sides in the conflict, Maeve is finally unable to find a place for herself in Northern Irish society and escapes to England.
• Mickybo and Me 2004 : The film is set in Belfast in the summer of 1970. Against the backdrop of 'the Troubles', the friendship of two young boys from either side of the political divide ("up the road" and "over the bridge") helps overcome the barriers. Their lives change when they see the film 'Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid'. Together they swear an oath to be blood brothers for life and to try to escape Belfast for the freedom of the Australian outback. Their infatuation with the movie leads them from fantasies into petty crime.
• Nothing Personal 1995 : A raw depiction of the Belfast 'troubles' as savage tribal warfare. Set shortly after the 1975 cease fire, the film focuses on the tribulations of Kenny, Protestant leader of a group of Shankill Road Loyalists, and his one-time friend Liam, a Catholic.
• Omagh 2004 : Omagh deals with the events and aftermath of 15 August 1998, when a bomb planted by the 'Real IRA' killed 29 people and two unborn children. The film tells the story of the 'Omagh Support and Self Help' group as the relatives strive to find the truth of what happened that day. At the heart of the film is the story of Michael Gallagher, who lost his 21-year-old son Aiden in the explosion, and who has become a key spokesman and lobbyist for the Support Group. The film was made with the full co-operation of the Support Group and of the Gallagher family.
• Patriot Games 1992 : In this adaptation of Tom Clancy's best-seller, Harrison Ford plays Jack Ryan, an ex-C.I.A. analyst who single-handedly foils an I.R.A. kidnap attempt while on vacation in London. Ryan kills one of the terrorists, which antagonises the young man's elder brother, and Ryan gets drawn back into the CIA when the same splinter faction of the IRA targets him and his family.
• Patriots : "A true story about a young American woman caught up in the bloody struggle for Irish independence. Alexis Shannon is recruited into the IRA by a handsome gunrunner who is actually an undercover agent working for Great Britain. When the IRA is tipped off that it has been infiltrated, Alexis must blow up a police station to prove her allegiance to the cause and is then forced to hide from the terrorists who attempt to kill her. Angry and abandoned, Alexis is finally smuggled back to the United States."
• Resurrection Man 1997 : Violent drama set in Belfast during the 1970's about a member of the Loyalist terror group, the Shankill Butchers.
• Some Mother's Son 1996  : A political drama about a fictionalised 1981 Maze hunger striker (though the historical huger strikers also appear), taken from a mother's perspective.
• Sunday 2001 : Sunday deals with the events that happened in Derry on 30 January 1972. During a civil rights march the British Army shot dead 13 civilian protesters and wounded another 14 people (one of whom died later in the year). The film provies some background to Bloody Sunday by briefly dealing with the civil rights campaign of 1968 and Internment in August 1971. The film also deals with the Widgery Inquiry in 1972.
• The Boxer 1997 : Day-Lewis plays the boxer, Danny, an IRA member who emerges from 14 years in prison to a Belfast still devastated by sectarian conflict. This is the third collaboration between Jim Sheridan and Daniel Day Lewis.
• The Crying Game 1992 : A British soldier is abducted by the IRA and held hostage on a farm by an IRA volunteer, who comes to respect and understand him. The film contains a unique twist in its treatment of political violence, race and sexuality, but it handles it in a way that does not alienate mainstream audiences.
• The Devil's Own 1997 : IRA man Frankie McGuire is sent to New York with a false name, Rory Devaney, and a mad mission to buy Stinger missiles. He is placed with the family of cop Tom O'Meara. Surrounded by a wife and three daughters, O'Meara takes to Devaney, who in turn sees in O'Meara the benevolent father he lost to the violence at home when he was a child of 8. The problems arise when Tom begins to suspect something about Rory's identity.
• The Outsider 1979  : The conflict between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the British Army in Northern Ireland provides the backdrop for this drama set in the early 1970s. Michael Flaherty (Craig Wasson) is an American of Irish descent who, after returning home from a tour of duty in Vietnam, is deciding what to do with his life. Since his childhood, Michael's grandfather Seamus (Sterling Hayden) has told him of his glorious younger days in Ireland, when he fought against the British with the IRA. Michael decides to go to Belfast to help the fight to end British rule, but he soon finds out that he's not welcomed by many of the locals. He's considered more important as a symbol than as a soldier or an activist - so much so that the IRA plans to have him killed in a way that can be blamed on British forces in order to help elicit financial support from wealthy Americans.
• This is the Sea 1996 : The film is set in Northern Ireland shortly after 1994 cease-fire. Hazel is a Protestant and Malachy a Catholic. Romance between them is a threatened by prejudices, and by Rohan (leader in militant underground and friend of Malachy's brother), who wants Malachy to be recruited and fight for the cause, and by Hazel's brother Jef, who spies on her meetings.
• Titanic Town 2000 : Based on a true story and set in Belfast during the 1970s. The film tells the story of one woman's efforts to protect her family from the impact of 'the Troubles'.

Кратко говоря о том, что же из себя представляют эти фильмы, нужно разделить их на несколько основных категорий:

1. те, которые в большей степение освещают деятельность ИРА
2. те, которые уделяют внимание жизни католиков
3. те, которые основаны на общем обзоре конфликта
4. те, которые рассматривают жизнь отдельной личности или группы личностей в ситуации данного конфликта;

Как мне кажется, каждый зритель в любом фильме, освещающем конфликт в Северной Ирландии найдёт для себя что-то интересное: от боевых действий до романтических сюжетов, хотя многое, конечно же, определяется и личностными интересами и предпочтениями. Мне, к примеру, намного проще перенестись в ситауцию и представить себя в роли героя, когда я смотрю не сухую документалку, а когда в фильме даётся обзор жизни одного-двух героев. Например, как в фильме   Mickybo and Me, где мы видим в роли главных персонажей два лучших друга. Нельзя сказать, что если фильм в той или иной мере " отдаёт предпочтение" какой-то из сторон конфликта, это значит, что это и есть основная задумка режиссёра. Во многих фильмах нам показывают жизнь людей, которые хотят верить в мир между врагами. Часто встречается сюжет, где описывается жизнь героя, который не хочет воевать, но из-за того, что его семью убивают, он начинает мстить. Как ни крути-фильмы хорошая вещь. Абсолютно не разбираясь в том или ином вопросе, после просмотра фильма очень многое расставляется на свои места. Главное не запутаться во мнениях: своём и автора ;)

Волошена Дарья