Film Review: A Mother Brings Her Son To Be Shot

“Here’s my favourite weapon, a hatchet. Throw it at somebody, kill them point blank straight away. It’d disintegrate the head – it would split in half like a melon.”

The person gleefully documenting his favourite weapon is 12-year-old Kevin Barry O’Donnell, who lives in Creggan – a “Republican ghetto” housing estate in Derry still devastated by the ripple effects of the Troubles. Suicide and gang activity are rampant in the community. Young boys grow into violent criminals and drug addicts. Dissident Republicans police the community, shooting the knees of men who engage in anti-social behaviour like drug-dealing. The locals prefer negotiating with these Republicans than the PSNI, because to do so risks being seen as an informer.

And so, one night, Majella O’Donnell took her eldest son, Philip Jr., to be shot.

Sinéad O’Shea’s harrowing documentary started out as an examination of punishment shootings, but her investigation transformed into a five-year exploration of Creggan’s history with the IRA, and the effect of trauma on different generations. While Majella struggles with the guilt she feels over Philip Jr., and worries about her younger son’s violent posturing, others feel like the system is working. Hugh Brady, a former IRA member, says at one point that Kevin Barry may well need “a fright” to straighten up.

Despite archive footage of Tony Blair and Bill Clinton announcing the Good Friday Agreement, there’s a nihilistic sense that no-one here can really escape the dark legacy of the Troubles. O’Shea obviously creates connections with her interviewees, but she doesn’t quite balance where and when to use her own presence, perhaps underestimating her impact. When the O’Donnells stop returning her calls, it feels like a sign that she hasn’t quite earned their confidence, but this goes unexamined. A disturbing portrait of a place that continues to hurt after the cameras stop rolling.

4.5

A Mother Brings Her Son To Be Shot - Trailer from CAT&Docs on Vimeo.