Branagh’s sublime love letter to Belfast
Chariots of Fire, The Princess Bride, Strictly Ballroom, Amelie, Whale Rider, Bend it Like Beckham, Slumdog Millionaire, La La Land, Jojo Rabbit.
The Toronto Film Festival’s annual audience award has always been a terrific gauge of both a film’s Oscar and Bafta prospects and potential as a true crowdpleaser. 2021’s winner is no exception.
Dedicated to ‘‘those who stayed’’, ‘‘those who left’’ and ‘‘all those who were lost’’, as well as his good mate, the late John Sessions, Kenneth Branagh’s love letter to his hometown and the power of cinema is a sumptuous, heartfelt joy from start to finish.
Some may bridle at the infusion of the currently dangerously curmudgeonly Van Morrison’s music into the film’s DNA and I have to admit I didn’t care for the opening modern day Belfast tourism video drone shots, but such quibbles are swept away by the crackling tension, cracking emotional journey and general craic on display in this truly immersive coming-ofage tale.
It’s August 1969 and 9-year-old Buddy (newcomer Jude Hill) is a prince of Mountcollyer St. Everybody in the neighbourhood knows him, likes him and looks after him, as he spends every spare moment in the outdoors dreaming of slaying dragons and being Danny Blanchflower.
But Belfast is a city divided along religious lines and when ‘‘the troubles’’ turn up virtually on Buddy’s protestant family’s doorstep at No 96, the usually ebullientmood changes.
The one bright spot is that it brings Buddy’s Pa (Jamie Dornan) hurriedly home from his job in England. Forced to seek employment on the other side of the Irish Sea due to ongoing troubleswith the tax man (not helped by a fondness for the bookies), Pa promises Buddy, his older brother Will (LewisMcAskie) and Buddy’s Ma (Caitriona Balfe) that everything will be okay, while explaining that all the disagreements are to do with ‘‘bloody religion’’.
‘‘Thenwhy do we have to go to church,’’ Buddy asks. ‘‘Because if you didn’t, your Grannywould kill me,’’ comes the instant reply.
But while Buddy tries to concentrate on catching the eye of classmate Catherine (Olive Tennant), pressure builds on his Pa, as some local protestant agitators give him an ultimatum to contribute either with cash, or verbal support, towards ousting Catholics from the area. He has no plans to do either. However, as the conflict intensifies, Vancouver or Sydney look more and more 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 reason with 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-andwhite, pepperedwith Schindler’s Listesque 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 Josie Walker’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 sheetmusic to Danny Boy,’’ she notes, while he informs Buddy that ‘‘there’s nothing wrong with an outside toilet – unless it’s on a plane’’.
His young charge too offers some hilarious insights, opining that his maths homework takes him ages, so ‘‘no wonder 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 stay with you. Both The Tourist’s Dornan and Outlander’s Balfe deliver terrific performances, highlighted in scenes where they comfort theirworried boys, or offer them hope for the future.
❚ Belfast is now screening in select cinemas nationwide.