I’ve been on a bit of an Ireland kick ever since I watched Derry Girls, so of course when I saw that Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast was playing at the Heartland Film Festival, I just had to watch it.
Apparently so did everyone else at the festival, because the first showing sold out! TRAGEDY. But then there was a second showing… at the same time as Jane Campion’s new movie, The Power of the Dog... it was a hard-fought battle, but in the end I went to Belfast, and I have no regrets! (Well, maybe a tiny little baby regret, but only in a “I wish I could have chosen both!” kind of way.)
Belfast is great. It’s based on Branagh’s childhood and it’s already getting Oxford buzz, and I can see why. The film starts with full-color shots of modern Belfast, then pans over a wall into the black-and-white world of a side street in 1967. Children are playing, shoppers walking up and down the street, everyone just going about their business… until a gang shows up and starts smashing up the street.
It’s only after it’s over (and this makes the destruction only more frightening) that we (and Buddy, our eight-year-old hero) learn why. This street, it seems, is one of the few left in Belfast where Protestants and Catholics live together, and this Protestant gang wants the Catholics out.
They also want all the Protestants firmly on their side, or at least to keep their mouths shut and fork over protection money. So even though Buddy’s family is Protestant, they’re on a collision course with trouble, because he’s not going to join up or fork over any money or pretend he has any problem with Catholics just to avoid trouble himself. But the political situation quickly makes this position untenable, and Buddy’s father starts looking for work that will allow him to move his family to England… only Buddy’s mother doesn’t want to leave Belfast.
Now, generally speaking I am on Team Leave the Active War Zone. I remained on this team throughout the movie, but Buddy’s mother makes a moving and beautiful case for why people do stay: they’ve lived here all their lives, all their family and friends are here, they’ve got roots in this city. “You say if we go to England we’ll have a bit of garden for the boys to play in,” she says. “But here they can play wherever they want, because everyone knows them, and everyone loves them, and everyone looks after them.”
And it’s clear this was the case - before the troubles began.
Also, let me pause for a shallow note, but the actors playing Buddy’s parents are both absolutely gorgeous, and they really nail a dynamic that a lot of movies try for and fail: a married couple whose relationship has believable and sometimes quite sharp tensions, but who nonetheless love each other and try hard to work it out. There’s a really lovely scene near the end where they’re singing and dancing at an Irish wake and the love between them, not just chemistry but a sense of deep attachment, almost shimmers in the air.
What makes the movie so good, I think, is the way that it alternates between relaxing the tension and pulling it tight. You have moments like the attack on the neighborhood at the beginning that are taut as a bowstring - and then bits like Buddy’s grandfather giving him (loving but perhaps questionable) advice on how to pursue his crush on his classmate Catherine, which give the audience a laugh and lets the tension go. And then the tension ratchets up again, and pulls all the tighter because it went slack.
I’ve rarely seen a movie so perfectly balanced. It’s doing a lot of things at once and it does them all well. Just a really lovely well-made film.
Apparently so did everyone else at the festival, because the first showing sold out! TRAGEDY. But then there was a second showing… at the same time as Jane Campion’s new movie, The Power of the Dog... it was a hard-fought battle, but in the end I went to Belfast, and I have no regrets! (Well, maybe a tiny little baby regret, but only in a “I wish I could have chosen both!” kind of way.)
Belfast is great. It’s based on Branagh’s childhood and it’s already getting Oxford buzz, and I can see why. The film starts with full-color shots of modern Belfast, then pans over a wall into the black-and-white world of a side street in 1967. Children are playing, shoppers walking up and down the street, everyone just going about their business… until a gang shows up and starts smashing up the street.
It’s only after it’s over (and this makes the destruction only more frightening) that we (and Buddy, our eight-year-old hero) learn why. This street, it seems, is one of the few left in Belfast where Protestants and Catholics live together, and this Protestant gang wants the Catholics out.
They also want all the Protestants firmly on their side, or at least to keep their mouths shut and fork over protection money. So even though Buddy’s family is Protestant, they’re on a collision course with trouble, because he’s not going to join up or fork over any money or pretend he has any problem with Catholics just to avoid trouble himself. But the political situation quickly makes this position untenable, and Buddy’s father starts looking for work that will allow him to move his family to England… only Buddy’s mother doesn’t want to leave Belfast.
Now, generally speaking I am on Team Leave the Active War Zone. I remained on this team throughout the movie, but Buddy’s mother makes a moving and beautiful case for why people do stay: they’ve lived here all their lives, all their family and friends are here, they’ve got roots in this city. “You say if we go to England we’ll have a bit of garden for the boys to play in,” she says. “But here they can play wherever they want, because everyone knows them, and everyone loves them, and everyone looks after them.”
And it’s clear this was the case - before the troubles began.
Also, let me pause for a shallow note, but the actors playing Buddy’s parents are both absolutely gorgeous, and they really nail a dynamic that a lot of movies try for and fail: a married couple whose relationship has believable and sometimes quite sharp tensions, but who nonetheless love each other and try hard to work it out. There’s a really lovely scene near the end where they’re singing and dancing at an Irish wake and the love between them, not just chemistry but a sense of deep attachment, almost shimmers in the air.
What makes the movie so good, I think, is the way that it alternates between relaxing the tension and pulling it tight. You have moments like the attack on the neighborhood at the beginning that are taut as a bowstring - and then bits like Buddy’s grandfather giving him (loving but perhaps questionable) advice on how to pursue his crush on his classmate Catherine, which give the audience a laugh and lets the tension go. And then the tension ratchets up again, and pulls all the tighter because it went slack.
I’ve rarely seen a movie so perfectly balanced. It’s doing a lot of things at once and it does them all well. Just a really lovely well-made film.