TV Reviews : ‘Grounds for Peace’ Turns the Other Cheek

The clear intent behind producer-narrator Martin Doblmeier’s documentary “Grounds for Peace” (tonight at 11, Channel 28), is indicated in the title’s pun. There is a basis for resolution of the bloody strife between Northern Ireland’s Catholics and Protestants, and it begins, Doblmeier suggests, on the lovely coastal grounds of a Christian community and retreat called Corrymeela.

But just as the intellectually strong but otherwise unintimidating Christians seem no match for the increasingly efficient and violent paramilitary squads on either side of what the ruling British euphemistically call “The Troubles,” so “Grounds for Peace” fails to press its case for the power of faith over force.

Doblmeier’s journalistic attack on the problem is simply too soft, too removed; rarely does he depict Catholics and Protestants talking through their inbred historical differences. Many fine, quintessentially Christian men and women speak volumes of wisdom here. The film gracefully documents followers of nonviolence meeting and sharing their often tragic pasts.

But when they leave Corrymeela, we are told--rather than shown--that they return to their own towns and cities to teach others the Corrymeela Way of turning the other cheek. And when Protestant and Catholic schoolchildren are brought together for a week to share their lives and feelings, Doblmeier’s camera shirks from showing what surely must have been a rush of emotions.

“Grounds for Peace” casts a kindly glance at “The Troubles,” and it doesn’t offer much grounds for hope.