Branagh’s sublime love letter to Belfast
towards ousting Catholics from the area. He has no plans to do either.
However, as the conflict intensifies, Vancouver or Sydney look more andmore attractive as an ‘‘escape option’’.
‘‘You can’t be with them 24 hours a day, and we can’t take away their childhood either,’’ Pa tries to reasonwith Ma. She though, believes leaving would be too much of awrench for all of them, especially with Granny (Judi Dench) and Pop (Ciaran Hinds) now well into their dotage.
Shot in gorgeously crisp black-and-white, peppered with Schindler’s List- esque fanciful smatterings of colour emanating from educational family trips to ‘‘filums’’ like Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and One Million Years B.C. (‘‘Raquel Welch is a hell of an education,’’ Ma notes of the latter), Belfast offers an emotive and evocative experience that few films have in recent years. You can almost smell the Ulster Fry and taste the dusty streets, as we see the world through Buddy’s eyes. It reminds one of John Boorman’s Hope and Glory or Spielberg’s Empire of the Sun in its juxtaposition of innocence against a backdrop of conflict.
But neither of those films had quite the heart or grand humour that courses through Branagh’s delightful script. Pithy and memorable one-liners abound, with Hinds’ charming patriarch and JosieWalker’s Aunt Violet getting the lion’s share of the best of them. ‘‘All the Irish need to survive is a phone, a Guinness and the sheet music to Danny Boy,’’ she notes, while he informs Buddy that ‘‘there’s nothingwrong with an outside toilet – unless it’s on a plane’’.
His young charge too offers some hilarious insights, opining that hismaths homework takes him ages, so ‘‘nowonder it’s called long division’’.
But while fans of Derry Girls or Moone Boy will find plenty to their liking, albeit in a story set a generation before, it’s the more poignant moments that really staywith you. Both The Tourist’s Dornan and Outlander’s Balfe deliver terrific performances, highlighted in scenes where they comfort their worried boys, or offer them hope for the future.
When Buddy reveals that the girl he fancies is a Catholic, Pa gives him an assurance that will most definitely leave youwith ‘‘the feels’’.
‘‘She can be a vegetarian atheist, but if she’s kind, and she’s fair, and you respect each other, then she and her people are welcome in our home anytime.’’
In a time of increasing intolerance, opposing world views and stressors, Belfast is a pitch perfect, resonant and, at times, joyous celebration of childhood and community spirit.
❚ Belfast is now screening in select cinemas nationwide.