Thursday 17 March 2016
Yann Demange | UK, 2014 | 1hr 40 mins | Rated 15
To commemorate the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Rising, HIC will be screening ‘71 – a dark and powerful commentary on the damaging legacy of British involvement in Irish politics.
“A nation that enslaves another cannot itself be free.”
James Connolly
Using great control of action and pace, director Demange recreates a taut conspiracy thriller set in the war zone that was west Belfast, 1971. He examines the sectarian violence of this troubled era that, although almost over, still occasionally erupts with burning hatred.
‘71 takes place in the early years of the conflict – a year before Bloody Sunday – and focuses on the central figure Gary Hook (Jack O’Connell), an English lad from Derbyshire who has joined the Parachute Regiment. One night the British Army carry out a house-to-house search off the Falls Road that goes horribly wrong; the resulting confrontation triggers a riot situation in which Gary is left behind by his retreating unit. He finds himself in a world where the authorities have built a network of high-level informers; where the authorities supply arms to loyalist paramilitaries to maintain a deniable proxy war; where dirty tricks abound. Unable to tell friend from foe, his challenge: to find his way to safety through a disorientating and toxic landscape.
’71 differs in tone to other great films that have tackled the complexities and tragedies of ‘the Troubles’ in Northern Ireland. Based upon fact, Demange has created a blisteringly tense film and, despite modern Belfast offering taxi tours of former IRA strongholds, the world of ’71 never seems far away.