Language: English
The panoramic montage of modern Belfast right at the start strikes a fascinating contrast to the film that follows. The brief sequence is among a few that Kenneth Branagh has shot in colour for his black and white ode to nostalgia and is executed with a sense of impersonal calm before his trip down memory lane, brimming with humour and high drama, takes over.
Writer-director Branagh’s film is set against The Troubles, or the tumultuous phase of ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that started in the late 1960s and lasted till the late nineties. The story opens on August 15, 1969. Rioters have taken over the streets of a working-class locality in the nation’s Capital city, Belfast, denouncing Catholics. Arson and violence follow, and you know life for people on the street — Catholics as well as Protestants — who have lived in harmony for decades, will not be the same again.
Branagh’s storytelling is not as grim as that backdrop might suggest. He chooses to narrate all that unfolds from the perspective of nine-year-old Buddy (played by feature debutant Jude Hill), which lets the director retain a gaze of innocence as wit and rightly-portioned melodrama mingle with a sense of understated chaos. The idea to package North Ireland’s most turbulent phase in history as the quasi-fictional memoir of a child lets Branagh avoid focus on the violent politics inherent in his saga. History puritans, as well as those that suffered through the three decades, might feel let down at such a cinematic approach to craft feel-good vibes, but Branagh’s effort is engaging enough as coming-of-age drama to justify his Oscar win for Best Original Screenplay. In various interviews, the filmmaker has described Belfast as his “most personal film”.
More than the real-life hostility used to propel the reel-life drama, Branagh’s Belfast comes alive through Buddy’s intimate experiences of the little things that define the metropolis of his growing-up years.
The apparent disconnect between a child’s innocence and the complicated socio-political mess that plays out in the world outside is utilised well by Branagh to set up a story that holds interest. In an early scene, even as widespread mayhem rages in the streets, Buddy and his brother Will (Lewis McAskie) lounge in the living room watching Star Trek on TV. “Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise, its five-year mission to explore strange new worlds,” booms William Shatner’s voice as Captain James T. Kirk. The obvious nostalgia that an allusion to Star Tek leaves in minds apart, the sequence is a smart ploy to herald what lies ahead. Shatner’s voiceover talks of missions “to seek out new life and new civilisations” and “to boldly go where no man has gone before”. Buddy’s Pa (Jamie Dornan), who works in London, talks of the idea of leaving Belfast for good, given the escalating lawlessness. He wants to emigrate to Sydney or Vancouver, though Buddy’s Ma (Caitriona Balfe) isn’t quite convinced.
For Buddy, the thought of leaving Belfast, his friends and, most of all, his grandparents (Judi Dench and Ciaran Hinds) is shattering. It is an agony that the narrative uses well, to demonstrate how the sincere sentiment a child might harbour, about being torn away from his beloved city, can be infinitely more powerful than the vested passions that drive armed public frenzy for political gains. It is a recurrent notion in the script, simply rendered every time to set up a sentimental connect with the viewer.
Hill as the little Buddy is flawless bringing alive Branagh’s days of boyhood, and the primary reason the film remains a lovable experience despite its constant tendency to manipulate audience emotions. The young actor is central to all that goes on, and features in almost every frame as the script captures the essence of the city through his actions. The film’s effort to maintain a happy mood all through is imaginatively rendered even in the most sombre of situations. A riot involving the looting of shops to avenge an earlier Protestant violence sees little Buddy getting mixed up with the action, and Branagh’s execution of the sequence is all about sardonic wit involving a family size packet of biological washing powder. Highlighting the pointlessness of ethnic violence, the screenplay cocks a snook at the Church, too. “Protestants, you will die!” hollers a minister from his Catholic pulpit after sermonising about the two paths in life to choose from (which leaves Buddy very confused), and then immediately yells, “Now, money!”, seeking donation.
Yet, the city is also Branagh’s den of discoveries. Buddy and Will watch with wide-eyed awe as Raquel Welch plays out cavewoman capers in the 1966 adventure flick One Million Years B.C. during a family’s day out at the movies (“Raquel Welch is hell of an education for the boys,” their Ma admonishes Pa, after he claims the boys could learn something watching the film). Irish football legend Danny Blanchflower finds homage through a wall graffiti. As the street outside Buddy’s home is fenced off for safety and a system of neighbourhood night watch is introduced, the television plays out showdown drama featuring James Stewart and John Wayne in the Hollywood classic, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance. Belfast is really a mood piece, and Branagh’s triumph lies in the effortlessness with which he lets his audience soak in the feel-good vibes.
As director, Branagh has mostly attempted book-to-film projects in the past, from Shakespeare (Henry V, Much Ado About Nothing, Hamlet, Love’s Labour’s Lost, As You Like It) to Agatha Christie (Murder On The Orient Express, Death On The Nile) to Tom Clancy (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit) to Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl and Cinderella. In Belfast, an original screenplay, Branagh reserves a scene where Buddy pores over a Thor comicbook, almost as if to remind he directed the 2011 global hit of that name featuring Chris Hemsworth as the Marvel superhero. Branagh’s directorial approach in Belfast is understandably more relaxed, since he was narrating his own tale.
If Belfast is a film about creating specific milieu, Haris Zambarloukos’ cinematography and Van Morrison’s music merit full marks. The technical finesse about the film comes alive, especially in scenes that capture Buddy’s bursts of imagination. A scene where he is out with his family watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, the 1968 musical adventure film about a magical flying car, is brilliantly captured in colour. The symbolism that art helps bring alive the true essence of life is also underlined by the use of colour photography for a sequence where the family is out watching the play, A Christmas Carol.
Aided by a robust cast and setting up wholesome entertainment, Branagh’s Belfast is universal in impact for the nostalgic whiff it pitches as its USP. The film is a moody piece that aims to transport its audience to a happy space. Black and white in treatment, it bursts with the myriad hues of life.
Rating: 3.5 (out of 5 stars)
Belfast is available on BookMyShow Stream, 3 June onwards
Vinayak Chakravorty is a critic, columnist, and film journalist based in Delhi-NCR.
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