Why is it that every film about the troubles in N.Ireland have a distinct rep/nat slant and passed off as fact.
McQueen had an excellent chance to show all the world the true consequences of terrorism and the effects it has on those who get involved or are victims of terrorists.
I find it amazing that no one was interested in aftermath of the brutal murder of the prison officer,a room full of people witness a man getting his brains blow out all over his mother and that is left as a foot note, why? Does anyone care about horror the IRA put people in N.Ireland through and Sands being a member of the IRA was an intricate part of that horror and blood shed..
The prison officers were portrayed as being inhuman,that makes it easier for people to accept the barbaric way the man was murdered, it means we do not have to question the actions that put the prisoners in the Maze in the first place. Demonise one side as McQueen has done and you get fiction not fact, show the horrors of one side and we still get fiction and many see it as fact.
The film is full of symbolic rhetoric, Sands reference to the fields of barley, linking the present time Ireland with the time portrayed in the film the Fields of Barley, and the Easter uprising.
Sands use of starving himself to death and becoming a false martyr he was no Gandhi as he was using his death to bring more onto the streets of N.Ireland to kill and maim. Gandhi used his hunger strike to end violence.
We have with the bloodied blanket scene a reference to the Shroud of Turin or it seems to be, now Sands is being Christ like in his sacrifice, on thing is that Christ died for us all not a section of a divided country.
This film will bring joy to those who do not understand N.Ireland and amazement to those who do, when a director has the guts to take an honest warts and all look at the "troubles" then we may all get an idea of the truth and that one side is not the inhuman with the other being the victim.
In this respect all McQueen achieved was a film which like all films has to be taken for what it is, a story with events that could have happened.
Just a foot note in history, the RIRA was created by Sands brother in-law, they still try to bring violence onto the streets of N.Ireland.
