A KNIGHT’S TALE...
SIR KENNETH BRANAGH’S COMING-OF-AGE DRAMA IS A DEEPLY PERSONAL VALENTINE TO THE CITY OF HIS BIRTH
BELFAST (12A)
REVIEWS BY DAMON SMITH
LIFE in black and white seems more colourful and vibrant in writer-director Sir Kenneth Branagh’s wondrous coming-ofage drama, drawn from the filmmaker’s vast well of childhood experiences in 1960s Belfast.
Sincerely dedicated to the people of the Northern Irish capital – “For the ones who stayed. For the ones who left. And for all the ones who were lost” – Branagh’s most personal film unfolds from the perspective of a nine-year-old rapscallion called Buddy (played by luminous newcomer Jude Hill).
We first see him romping around the streets with his pals, brandishing a home-made wooden sword and using an upturned dustbin lid as a shield.
The tyke is slaying imaginary dragons but the invisible enemy, poised to roar and tear apart Protestant and Catholic communities, is a two-headed hydra of political and nationalistic fervour.
Principal characters in Branagh’s script are referred to simply by their familial ties to Buddy – Ma, Pa, Granny and Pop – tapping into an undercurrent of charming childhood innocence that insulates the boy from the harsh reality of barricades being hastily erected at the end of the street or a local supermarket being looted during a riot.
Branagh’s crowd-pleasing film is a beautifully crafted valentine to a city in the grip of devastating change and a resilient and warmhearted people, who mine humour in adversity.
“The Irish were born for leaving,” an aunt tells Buddy’s mother by way of a bittersweet farewell.
“Otherwise the rest of the world would have no pubs!”
Buddy (Hill) and his family – Pa (Jamie Dornan), Ma (Caitriona Balfe) and older brother Will (Lewis McAskie) – live in a predominantly Protestant district of north Belfast, cheek by jowl with Catholic neighbours.
Granny (Dame Judi Dench) and Pop (Ciaran Hinds) live a few streets away.
Billy Clanton (Colin Morgan) and his comrades target Catholic houses in Buddy’s neighbourhood, claiming they are “lookin’ to cleanse the community a wee bit”
Hostilities result in family members going through barricade checkpoints and local men patrolling night-time streets with torches. For Pa, it is an unthinkable opportunity to transplant the clan to Australia or Canada: “An escape route”.
Distinguished by Haris Zambarloukos’s monochrome cinematography, Belfast relies on a terrific ensemble cast led by the exuberant Hill to paper over slight narrative shortfalls in a rosetinted script drizzled with nostalgia Balfe’s fearful matriarch is the film’s beating heart and she powerfully conveys the emotional turmoil of a family’s forcible displacement from their home.
Branagh’s delicate touch results in a sprightly running time that leaves us hankering for more.
■ In cinemas from Friday