After how well our last look at the work of Kenneth Branagh turned out with All Is True, and considering how self-reflective that film was, I was quite looking forward to this new feature. Where All Is True showed Branagh contemplating his future and his place as an older thespian that was becoming more known for gun-for-hire work than his more theatrical fare, Belfast is primarily about his past. It’s a semi-autobiographical coming-of-age story about young Buddy (Jude Hill) growing up in the midst of The Troubles, although it’s not as overtly dramatic as that may make it sound.
This isn’t Ken Loach we’re talking about here. As much as the film delves into Buddy’s living situation, his father (Jamie Dornan)’s struggles to stay out of the civil war around him, and the prospect of them leaving for greener pastures, this isn’t really a work of social realism. It exists in a heightened state of reality, beyond mere biopic territory, and it sets things up brilliantly right out of the gate. The opening shots of modern Belfast, soundtracked by Van Morrison (who apparently took a break from spreading bullshit with Eric ‘the reason Rock Against Racism exists’ Clapton to contribute an original song to this), are quite beautiful, which only brings out the chaos of the film’s ‘real’ opening, with Buddy out in the street as a riot takes place.
While the mostly black-and-white colour palette gives some initial inklings of something like Roma, another culturally-specific example of a filmmaker’s childhood nostalgia, the younger character point-of-view combined with DP Haris Zambarloukos’ frequently-symmetrical framing give it more of a Wes Anderson-ian bent; think a less outwardly-zany Moonrise Kingdom. And there’s a lot of intertextuality going on here, from the opening riot in all its Henry-V-ness, to the numerous moments of Buddy basking in the glow of the arts either on the TV, at the theatre, or at the movies, to a few cheeky sight gags, like a shot of an Agatha Christie book in the family library, or Buddy himself reading a Mighty Thor comic.
Through that, the film shows Buddy (AKA Branagh himself) as someone who used the media around him to escape his surroundings. As a portal into his own little Shangri-la, where cars could fly, Raquel Welch encounters dinosaurs, and good men stood up for their loved ones. People like his father, who takes on the visage of a classic Western hero when he stands up to local tough Billy (Merlin’s Colin Morgan in a surprisingly intimidating turn). I once again admit that I’m a sucker for these kinds of stories, where cinema is shown as a vital tool for personal development, but I really like how it’s handled here. Yeah, it’s a bit hokey in how it influences the visuals (get it? The movies and theatre bring a bit of colour into his life?), but it’s quite endearing, especially as delivered by this cast.
Jude Hill in the lead role works wonders for the film’s highly idealistic tone, but it’s with his larger family that I found myself truly falling in love with these characters. Dornan and Caitríona Balfe as Buddy’s parents are excellent (Dornan in particular might be onto his best performance yet with this one, Everlasting Love included), Lara McDonnell as Buddy’s friend Moira brings a touch of Jojo Rabbit-esque mischief to the proceedings, and Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds as Buddy’s grandparents… I absolutely love these two. Dench’s warmth combined with Hind’s frequent scene-stealing, like him teaching Buddy ‘spread betting’, make for two characters I have a pretty good feeling will be staying in my memory for the rest of the year.
But even
with that in mind, the most impressive thing about this? It somehow
manages to balance out the innocence of its story and its main character
with just how violent and… well, let’s face it, depressing
the historical specifics are. It being this lighthearted about living in
constant fear of riots and religious persecution could have very easily
fallen into bad taste, and it very nearly does. Branagh’s framing of the
Troubles is primarily religious, taking the Protestant and Catholic labels for
the two sides at face value, which from what little I know off-hand about the era doesn't seem to be accurate.
However, aside from the intentional disconnect from strict reality (what with the hyperrealistic framing and the quite theatrical set design of the street where most of the Troubles conflict spills out), it still manages to ring true as far as being from a child’s point of view. The ‘right’ side and the ‘wrong’ side of the conflict don’t really matter as much, when both of them are making life at home into a literal war zone. It fits with the kind of storytelling Branagh usually engages with, like with how he’d take the cultural and temporal anachronisms of Shakespeare’s plays… and somehow go even further on occasion. There’s also how it spends quite a bit of its first act openly taking the piss out of religion as a whole for how fear-based and divisive it can be, so it at least sets the film up as not taking itself entirely seriously.
It’s definitely an odd mixture, but I can’t say it didn’t win me over. I just love how this looks, sounds (yeah, despite my little dig at Van Morrison earlier, the music for this is really damn good), and feels as a pop culture-soaked recollection of youth. For all its inaccuracies and occasional tonal skips, it shows Kenneth Branagh examining his own genesis; all the little building blocks that would add up to a filmmaker that I have quite a bit of respect for, both for his hybridisation of film and theatre and for his generally hamtastic on-screen personae.
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