Belfast
Kenneth Branagh returns to his Irish roots for his most personal film to date.
Although it is unlike any other film in which he has been involved, Kenneth Branagh has received some of the best reviews of his career for Belfast. This must give him great satisfaction since, while not appearing on screen this time, he is credited as both writer and director and, indeed, his film is one in which he evokes his own childhood. Born in 1960 in Belfast, Branagh moved to Reading with his family when he was nine and, although this film’s central character is called Buddy and not Kenneth, he is the same age. Furthermore, a key aspect of the story is whether or not the on-screen family will leave Belfast due to the impact of the Troubles and consequent concerns for the children growing up in that situation. Understandably Belfast has evoked comparisons with Hope and Glory, that being the 1987 film in which John Boorman looked back on his personal experiences as a youngster living in London during the first years of the Second World War.
When defining Branagh’s aims here it is useful to make two further movie comparisons. Given that Belfast is set in the strife-torn late 1960s, it is worth pointing out that this is not a political film in the sense that it chooses not to follow the example of such filmmakers as Ken Loach by taking a personal stance on the rights and wrongs involved in the Troubles. What the film does do is to focus on a Protestant family living amid Catholics and to illustrate the cost of the political and religious divide as it affected ordinary households whatever their persuasions were. The other relevant reference point is the marvellous film made by Terence Davies in 1988, Distant Voices, Still Lives, which similarly evoked his childhood, in his case in Liverpool in the 1960s. Despite similarities, Davies gave us a work of art house cinema whereas Branagh, no less sincere, seeks popular appeal.
Two qualities mark out Belfast from the start and amply explain the many exceptionally positive reactions that greeted its screening in the 2021 London Film Festival. First, there is the extra dexterity that Branagh brings to his direction and which makes it his best work in that capacity to date aided by what must have been a very close collaboration with his editor Úna Ní Dhonghaile. Secondly, his film conveys instantly the affection that he feels on looking back on his early years and on the family into which he was born. As presented here, the family is seen through the boy’s eyes and it is thus that we view his parents (Catriona Balfe and Jamie Dornan), his grandparents (Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds) and his older brother, Will (Lewis McAskie).
Structurally the element that comes closest to uniting Belfast with Distant Voices, Still Lives is the risk that Branagh takes in jettisoning any substantial plot as such. Although largely in the background, the Troubles are there as a constant concern not least because the boys may be encouraged to join those ready to take to the streets and to engage in violence despite the fact that the family reject any involvement in sectarianism. Even so the prime focus is on everyday life in an essentially happy family despite dad frequently being away due to having employment which regularly takes him to England. The sense of realism sets the tone for the acting. This is well judged by Balfe and Dornan and young Jude Hill essays the role of Buddy with confidence and has an unforced, natural approach. Best of all, we have Dench and Hinds. Dame Judi is so often outstanding on the screen that we might undervalue her supporting performance here, but what is remarkable about it is the extent to which she loses herself in the part and Hinds, playing most of his scenes with her, rises to the occasion.
However precise the setting is, the fact that many of us can look back on happy memories of childhood gives Belfast a wide appeal, a nostalgia that can be shared because so much in it is universal. Add the attraction of the performances and it seems likely that most audiences will embrace the film together with its music which is by Van Morrison and extends to a whole series of songs performed by him on the soundtrack. This feature is one that underlines Branagh’s desire to set a popular tone. So successful is this that it could well be that most audiences will not share my own reservations which arise in the film’s last quarter over stylistic concerns (some other critics have expressed reservations too, but not necessarily the same ones). Readers who don't want to know the details that worry me are advised to stop reading here.
Before moving back to 1969, Belfast begins with scenes of the city in colour, but it then opts for photography in black-and-white and that works well. Far more successfully than in Sorrentino’s The Hand of God, it evokes the pleasure that cinema gives to a boy growing up and daringly Branagh illustrates this by including colour extracts from One Million Years B.C. and Chitty Chitty Bang Bang before using black and white shots to show Buddy watching these films. In this instance the emotional impact with which cinema brings colour to a life which lacks it justifies the stylisation. However, later attempts at further stylisation seem at odds with the nature of the piece. The prime example arises during a scene which feels unconvincing in itself as his mother takes Buddy back to a store to replace an item which he has looted regardless of the continuing violence there. With the situation turning explosive, Branagh, who had earlier shown us a visit to the cinema to see High Noon, brings back the soundtrack song and plays it over the film’s most fearsome street scene. I found that an appalling misjudgment, just as it feels wrong to have the last words in the film shot as though spoken directly to camera. Put these misjudgements together and for me they seriously weaken Belfast, but the rest of it is so well done that I would still encourage potential viewers to see it - and quite possibly it will win them over sufficiently to make them reject or ignore my criticisms. The dedication at the film’s close stresses most appropriately the nonjudgmental concern that Branagh has for all the people of Belfast whatever their outlook and whatever their fate.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Caitríona Balfe, Judi Dench, Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds, Colin Morgan, Jude Hill, Michael Maloney, Olive Tennant, Lewis McAskie, Josie Walker, Freya Yates, Nessa Eriksson, Lara McDonnell, Gerard Horan, Josie Walker, Vanessa Ifediora, John Sessions, Bill Branagh, Mark Hadfield, Joyce Branagh, Tom Wilkinson.
Dir Kenneth Branagh, Pro Kenneth Branagh, Laura Berwick, Becca Kovacik and Tamar Thomas, Screenplay Kenneth Branagh, Ph Haris Zambarloukos, Pro Des Jim Clay, Ed Úna Ní Dhonghaile, Music Van Morrison, Costumes Charlotte Walter, Dialect coach Jan Haydn Rowles.
TKBC-Universal Pictures International.
98 mins. UK/USA. 2021. US Rel: 12 November 2021. UK Rel: 21 January 2022. Cert. 12A .
