It’s always funny to me how film buffs try to figure out the many cryptic plot points in “2001: A Space Odyssey,” when all they need to do is to crack open Arthur C. Clarke’s novel, which was written at the same time as the screenplay. Kubrick’s masterwork lets us feel the story while delivering almost no exposition as to what exactly is going on. Clarke’s book, on the other hand, allows us to fully comprehend and absorb the narrative, giving us cold and direct details regarding the entire plot, without almost any of the artistic beauty that gorgeously infuses Kubrick’s film. Thus, the movie and the book perfectly compliment each other.
You must be asking yourself just what the hell 2001 has to do with “Bobby Sands: 66 Days,” a terrific documentary about the 1981 Irish hunger strike, and the fiercely determined man in the center of it? Audiences who might not be well versed in the history of the Northern Irish conflict might be familiar with legendary IRA member Bobby Sands’ hunger strike in order to be recognized as a political prisoner via Steve McQueen’s cerebral masterwork “Hunger,” still one of the greatest first features ever made. McQueen’s vision for executing this important story was to let the audience feel the horrid experience without diluting it with exposition to explain the unforgiving nature of the political climate at the time.
It was almost a silent film, save for the occasional speeches from then Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher superimposed over shots of prisoners suffering during the strike, and that amazing midpoint single take dialogue sequence. “Bobby Sands: 66 Days,” on the other hand, focuses entirely on giving the audience not only every piece of pertinent information about the hunger strike, the conflict as it stood at the time, and the entire history of the conflict, but it also heartily delves into the hunger strike as an effective means for not only protesting, but for winning a war. “Hunger” lets us feel the suffering, “Bobby Sands: 66 Days” allows us to understand all aspects of it. The two films compliment each other to the point of creating the perfect picture.
Director Brendan Byrne, also making his mark on a terrific first film, employs a kitchen sink approach that briskly switches between the entire multitudes of subjects he attempts to cram into a 105-minute documentary. Apart from the aforementioned elements, we also get haunting reenactments of Sands wasting away in prison, with voice-over readings from his diary, and medical experts walking us through the clinical details of what happens to the human body during a hunger strike, effectively accentuated via stark anatomy animation.
This kind of overloaded approach usually ends up as a disaster for a documentary, but Byrne manages to constantly keep our interest by employing a strict structure to seamlessly blend all of these points into a powerful statement about the effectiveness of non-violent resistance. The doc is practically split into ten-minute-or-so segments that follow pretty much the same outline: reenactments of Bobby Sands’ diary preceded by superimposed text of his declining weight as the hunger strike goes on, complete with the ludicrous official stance of the British government declaring him to be perfectly healthy. That’s followed by contemporary interviews with people who were involved directly with Sands or the conflict as a whole, brilliantly intercut with archive footage that makes the events palpable for the audience. Then, we get a quick history lesson about the overall conflict, going all the way back to the 1910s, depicted vividly through interviews with historians and a combination of archive footage and animation. Occasionally, bits about the historical meaning and the health ramifications of the hunger strike are thrown in as well. Once this series of sequences are over, the cycle is repeated pretty much until the documentary ends. I know that this description makes “Bobby Sands: 66 Days” sound like a dull and episodic experience, but the information is structured in such a briskly paced manner, that I doubt that anyone will be bothered or bored by this narrative approach.
One of the most fascinating parts of the doc concerns the very idea of the hunger strike, or any form of suffering fighters subject themselves to in order to defeat the enemy. Terence MacSwiney, one of the original leaders of the conflict, and Ho Chi Minh, the Vietnamese leader during that infamous war, are credited with defending the hunger strike as an effective form of non-violent warfare. Their thesis lies in the idea that it’s far more potent to let oneself suffer in order to open up the world’s eyes to the injustice, as opposed to making the enemy suffer, which pretty much does nothing but perpetuate an endless cycle of violence.
Even though we clearly understand which side of the conflict Byrne’s passion lays, he doesn’t present an IRA love-fest with his film. There are sections that directly criticize the senseless violence that was perpetrated in IRA’s name, clarified especially during a sequence where the excitement of a political movement done in Sands’ name was marred by the IRA’s pointless killing of a census taker. Not only is “Bobby Sands: 66 Days” allows us to put together a great double feature with “Hunger,” it’s also an incredibly important and profoundly inspiring historical documentary that will become more and more relevant as we prepare to once again face the kinds of oppression that Sands fought against. [A-]