Bernadette ***

Short Documentary

Director: Duncan Campbell

Year: 2008

First half is a look at Bernadette Devlin the north Irish activist who fought for independence from england and peace between the catholics and protestants. She was elected to parliament, but the Prime Minister and parliament refused to recognize her representative voice.

The dated news footage of her is edited in such a way to keep the audience a little confused, and to convey the chaos of the challenge she faced, organizing a revolution.

Then the film turns to a dramatic reading of a poetic monologue, supposedly the inner dialogue of Bernadette thinking about her own egoism and the hypocrisy of writing her autobiography.

The short doesn't teach us much in depth about her, and although it first sets up a basic understanding of who she was and what she was doing, doesn't want to give us a full character arc, but instead gets sucked up into a mediocre poetry reading that doesn't help shed any light on who she was.