BELFAST (2021) ¢ ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Kenneth Branagh
Jude Hill, Jamie Dornan, Caitriona Balfe,
Ciaran Hinds, Judi Dench, Colin Morgan
Like John Boorman's "Hope and Glory" (1987), Kenneth Branagh's "Belfast" is about a kid growing up in a war zone. In Boorman's movie, it was the London Blitz. In Branagh's, it's the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It all plays out in a working-class neighborhood where Catholics and Protestants have been walking the same streets for generations. When Protestant gangs take to those streets, aiming to drive out the Catholics or kill them, along with any Protestants who don't think that's a good idea, things get tense. But the folks who have lived there all their lives don't want to leave, and that includes Buddy, a kid who mostly just wants to play soccer and hang out with his beloved grandfather and maybe get better acquainted with a girl he has a crush on at school. It's shot in black and white in available light, which gives the whole film the same sort of documentary feel as the news footage that turns up on television. There are movie references - "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", "Nigh Noon", "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" and "One Million Years B.C." - and the soundtrack is practically wall-to-wall Van Morrison.The Belfast Branagh shows you is a scary place to be, but it's where these people live and always have, so what are you going to do? There's no easy answer, but Branagh's dedication at the end says a lot very simply: "For those who stayed. For those who left. For all those who were lost."
