A winner at Toronto, and tipped to snag more big prizes at the Baftas and Oscars, Kenneth Branagh’s latest movie is a semi-autobiographical drama about growing up during the Troubles. Though it contains sentimental and self-serving moments, (and presses the ‘killer Van Morrison track’ button way too often), I loved it. The majority of the scenes may be shot in black and white, but the logic that underpins the story is anything but.
It’s 1969 and North Belfast urchin, Buddy (Jude Hill), is obsessed with football, dragons, comics and his brainy, dainty classmate, Catherine (Olive Tennant).
Buddy’s family live in a “mixed” neighbourhood and our hero is flabbergasted when a riot takes place in his street, designed to scare off Catholics. Buddy’s clan are Protestants, but his Pa (Jamie Dornan), Ma (Caitriona Balfe), older brother, Will (Lewis McAskie) and grandparents, Pop and Granny (Ciarán Hinds and Judi Dench) despise the “gangsters” spear-heading the unrest. Militia leader Billy Clanton (Colin Morgan) insists all Protestants offer “cash or commitment”. And though Pa refuses to do either, Will and Buddy get swept up in the violence. As the British army become a permanent fixture in the area, Pa – mostly working in England, as a joiner – implores Ma to consider a re-location.
While full of (cracking) jokes, Belfast is incredibly tense. What’s taking place is ethnic cleansing (Clanton uses the word “cleanse”) and what makes it so confounding is that the lovely, Protestant families on Buddy’s street are complicit in the process.
Pa is referred to, twice, as a “lone ranger”, while a series of edits, and the Tex Ritter ballad High Noon link him to Gary Cooper’s Will Kane. He’s also shot from below, so he looms above us, and his excellent hand and eye coordination (he’s an expert bowler) pays dividends in a post-looting stand-off that shows the whole, pulchritudinous family pulling together to rout the gun-toting Clanton.
I’m guessing the real Mr and Mrs Branagh didn’t save their son from a bullet to the head. Which doesn’t rankle because, seconds after this dramatic and rapturous scene, Pop says the loyalists will now “send someone serious” after Pa, making clear that Clanton was always a footling foe and that the problem is so much bigger than the movie-dazzled Buddy can comprehend.
To put it another way, Buddy has the same name as the innocent protagonist of cosy Christmas classic, Elf. And Hinds’ magnificently wise and twinkly-eyed Pop definitely owes something to Santa Claus. But don’t be fooled. Nothing can magic away the prejudice that rips this community apart. And anyone who says this personal movie isn’t political is kidding themselves.
The cinematography and sound design, by the way, are a treat. In one sequence, the camera takes a 360 degree twirl, as time gets woozy and the world goes quiet. There’s also wicked fun to be had contrasting Pa and Ma’s immaculate, spartan, rented home with the grandparents’ more rickety gaff. The camera loiters at the open windows of both houses, allowing us to get a good look at Pop’s TV, which looks as if it’s been feasted on by mice.
True, the visuals in Roma (a film to which Belfast has been much compared) are more original. On the other hand, it’s rare, even in this day and age, for a director to have working-class roots and Branagh flies the flag beautifully for anyone whose child-care routine involved a granny, rather than a nanny.
Branagh - who mis-used Dench horribly in Artemis Fowl - has now atoned for that crime. Dench, like the whole cast, is irresistible. And as well as making a decent fist of the Belfast accent, she gets the last word. As Granny watches loved ones leave, Dench growls, with a fury indistinguishable from grief, “Go now, and don’t look back.”
Branagh, of course, has chosen to disobey that command. He’s a highly esteemed director but for me, this is the first project he’s made that doesn’t labour to impress. Belfast casually acknowledges the nastiness of existence. Here’s to a playful take on nostalgia, that somehow warms your heart, even as it makes your blood run cold.
