RAVE - '71

Set in in Belfast, Northern Ireland in er, 1971, this gritty film tells the story of a British Army detachment sent into the impossible badlands of a nasty, religious and political war between Catholics and Protestants.

I know the ugly effects this fighting had on the otherwise safe streets of London. During the late '70s when car bombs were set off by the IRA in London, I found myself walking the streets of West London imagining that a bomb could go off at any minute. The film reminded me how horrible it must have been in Belfast where, as the Lieutenant welcomed the soldiers by saying "the Catholics and Protestants live right next to each other, at one anothers' throats all the time".

The fractious mix of old school IRA, and Provisional - generally younger and more militant - IRA, Protestant rabble-rousers, and under cover British soldiers made for a hotbed of hatred? Into this melee, the detachment were sent to protect the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the local police as they conducted house to house searches looking for weapons.

One ugly scene led to another, and our reluctant soldier was accidentally left behind as the main band beat a hasty retreat from a riot.

The taught story of his night spent trying to avoid the gunmen is unglamorous, realistic, and scary as hell.