Yes, like the U2 song: on Sunday, January 30th, 1972, English paratroopers turned a peaceful march in Derry into a massacre. Thirteen unarmed civilians were killed, fourteen more wounded. Thirty years later, Britain and Ireland financed this film together to create, as director Peter Greengrass puts it, a "shared narrative" of this most horrible day of the Irish Troubles.

Filmed with unsteady handheld cameras in brief, confusing shots, "Bloody Sunday" is a bumpy, chaotic ride. As quick cuts jump from scene to scene, dialogue in heavy accents is interrupted by ringing phones and breathless bits of news, I had to strain to make sure I followed what was going on. No matter: Greengrass knowingly sacrifices details to the irresistible pull of events and creates an atmosphere that feels as authentic as it is frenetic. "Bloody Sunday" looks as if it was an actual documentary, and the immediacy is overwhelming.

Dread builds slowly as warnings are ignored and orders are issued. I felt queasy anticipating the inevitable catastrophe and the heart wrenching denouement. An extraordinarily powerful film about a specific time and place that is also about any time and any place where two groups of people fight over the same land and fail to make peace. By the time U2 plays over the final credits, horror, anger, and sadness vie for equal space in the audience's hearts.

Bloody Sunday is showing at the New York Film Festival on October 2 and 3. It is opening nationwide on October 4.