’Gerry Adams: A Ballymurphy Man’ review: Absorbing portrait of the controversial Irish politician

Dir: Trisha Ziff. Eire/Mexico. 2024. 117mins

Gerry Adams: A Ballymurphy Man permits the veteran politician to mirror on 60 years of activism in Northern Eire, and the lengthy street from incarcerated freedom fighter to elder statesman. Trisha Ziff’s absorbing documentary reveals a historical past of Northern Eire via one man’s life and proves surprisingly emotional within the message of hope that emerges from Adams’ struggles. Many Irish audiences will welcome the comparatively uncommon alternative to see Adams speak at size about his values and motivations. The teachings from the Northern Eire battle and the search for peace lend the movie a wider potential enchantment. 

Furthers our understanding of a once-controversial determine

Devoted to the movie’s co-producer Ross McDonnell, who died in 2023, this newest documentary from UK-born, Mexico-based Ziff (Oaxacalifornia: The Return) was filmed over 5 years and is firmly based mostly round prolonged interviews with Adams. There aren’t any dissenting voices to problem him or difficult inquiries to navigate. He’s relaxed and affable, giving a considerate evaluation of the previous and his half in bringing Northern Eire from battle to peace.

Early within the movie, Adams asserts that “politics is just not price something except it empowers individuals”. Over the following two hours, that’s confirmed as a guiding philosophy for somebody who has all the time displayed the braveness of his convictions and brought motion when he sees injustice and oppression. A Ballymurphy Man traces the evolution of Adams’ political views, but additionally gives some perception into his private life. He remembers household life within the late Nineteen Forties and ’50s with portraits of kinfolk and locations that really feel positively Dickensian. He pays tribute to the affect of his grandmother, a millworker who launched Adams to the fun of studying and the significance of schooling. He was simply 15 when he learn the Particular Powers Act of 1922, which granted the authorities in depth controls to take care of peace and order.

Adams’ childhood and adolescence have been lived in a Northern Eire that he got here to view as a land colonised by an England that pursued a coverage of divide and rule. Dehumanising the inhabitants, labelling them barbarians in want of civilisation and denying human rights are strikes repeated all through historical past and acutely acquainted from conflicts that also rage world wide. His evaluation permits us to grasp why his life has been dedicated to the “reconquest of Eire by the individuals who dwell right here”.

Adams’ story is illustrated by a feast of archive footage that features images from his household albums, house films and in depth use of reporting on what turned often called the Troubles. Evocative black-and-white photos of communities below siege, barricaded areas of Belfast, British troops on the streets, curfews and resistance convey the truth of a world that Adams compares to Apocalypse Now.

He additionally speaks of his time in jail, the starvation strikes of the early Nineteen Eighties, the dying of IRA determine Bobby Sands and his personal election as MP for West Belfast in 1983. There isn’t a bitterness in his reflections. Recalling one of many makes an attempt on his life, he observes drily: “I’ve been blessed with very dangerous assassins.”

There may be additionally private perception into Adams’ conferences with SDLP chief John Hume, the efforts that ultimately introduced the Good Friday Settlement of 1998 and the prospect for peace to take root in Northern Eire. There may be a lot to cowl right here that the documentary may simply have been longer. Its achievement is to additional the understanding of a once-controversial determine, whose life gives a window right into a a lot wider motion and the way the fiercest of conflicts can finally discover a approach to decision.