by Annette Basile
Worth: $14.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Gerry Adams
Intro:
As a history of the Troubles, Gerry Adams: A Ballymurphy Man is fascinating. As a history of the man himself, it’s sanitised.
This documentary about controversial former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams offers his personal perspective on what is euphemistically called ‘the Troubles’ in Northern Ireland – the bloody war between Catholic Irish nationalists and British Protestant unionists that raged from the 1960s through to the 1990s.
Adams, now in his mid-70s, was interviewed over a period of five years for this film, and he comes across as astute and articulate. But we never hear the questions, just Adams’ comments, which are illustrated with incredible archival footage – from black and white stills to colour news footage. The images form a visual history of violence – extraordinary scenes showing Catholics fleeing their homes, burned out by the British.
The documentary is often gripping, and Adams is so quotable: “Politics is not worth anything unless it empowers people,” he says, and his thoughts on how colonialists seek to dehumanise those that they wish to colonise will appeal to those whose political hearts lean to the left. Right wing hearts? Not so much.
Adams, who became an MP, has long been accused of being a member of the IRA. “Let me be very, very clear about this,” he says here. “I have never disassociated myself from the IRA and I never will … that isn’t to say that the IRA were right all the time. The IRA were not right all the time, and the IRA did things that should not have been done.”
He goes on to say that the IRA deserves “huge credit” for resisting as long as they did, adding that he does not wish to take away from the suffering of those killed or injured by the organisation.
Born in the Ballymurphy district of Belfast, Northern Ireland, Adams speaks of his early life and spending a lot of time with his grandmother; her home in the shadow of the linen mills, and as a child, she was a “half-timer”, so, going to school one day and working in the mills the next.
He talks about being late for his wedding because he was at a political meeting, and speaks of his time in prison, beaten senseless by the British. What he doesn’t talk about is his brother Liam, who was imprisoned for sexually abusing his daughter (Adams’ niece). While Adams is not guilty for the sins of the brother, where it does become uncomfortable is that he reportedly knew about the abuse for years before it came to light.
As a history of the Troubles, Gerry Adams: A Ballymurphy Man is fascinating. As a history of the man himself, it’s sanitised.
