Belfast

I feel Irish. I don't think you can take Belfast out of the boy. 

Kenneth Branagh 

For St. Patrick’s Day, I chose Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast for consideration. Last weekend it won the category “Outstanding British Film” at the Baftas.

Since 1989, Kenneth Branagh has made nineteen films, his best being his very first, Henry V, based on Shakespeare’s play. He has made five more films based on Shakespeare plays, all of which show far more talent and ambition than any of his other films. In addition (or, rather, subtraction), in the past twenty years he appears to have become a commercial Hollywood tool, one of any number of people who could’ve made Thor or Cinderella. His Murder on the Orient Express never once showed me a reason for being made. It made me instantly nostalgic for Sidney Lumet’s version which now seems toweringly glamorous. 

Now he has made a “semi-autobiographical” romance of his boyhood times in Belfast. As everyone should know by now, the Northern Ireland Conflict, or the Troubles, erupted in violence in August of 1969, as Protestants rioted and attacked Catholics. Despite this, the conflict was nationalist rather than religious. The six counties of Northern Ireland remained loyal to Great Britain after the Republic of Ireland was established in 1949. The so-called Battle of the Bogside happened on August 12, 1969. British troops were deployed to Northern Ireland on August 14. When the film opens it’s August 15. 

Branagh makes it seem as if the whole conflict erupts on Buddy’s (the 8-year-old stand-in for Branagh himself) street, but it seemed that way to Buddy. And if anything seemed big or small, right or wrong to little Buddy, Branagh makes it seem for us. Barricades and barbed wire are erected at the entrance to the street. Buddy lives with his family – mother and father, grandparents and an older brother – in a Belfast backstreet (no one else in Buddy’s family except his older brother, Will, is given a name. They are called Pa, Ma, Pop and Granny). On the wall at the entrance to the block is a text from I Timothy 1:15, “This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” 

Buddy’s father has a job in England and, when the violence flares in Belfast, talks with his wife about taking the whole family to Australia or Canada. Eventually, they leave for England (Branagh’s family moved to Reading in 1970). The boys watch a great deal of television, including the original Star Trek series and such Westerns as The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance and High Noon. The theme song from the latter, “Do Not Forsake Me, O My Darlin’,“ is even imported by Branagh when a local Protestant tough tries to enlist Pa in his gang. As if the allusion weren’t clear enough, Branagh gives him the name Billy Clanton, straight out of the OK Corral. There is even the moment, near the end of the film, when Buddy says goodbye to his classmate and she opens her door and her door frames the shot, á la The Searchers, and he stands there like John Wayne. Branagh holds the shot like Ford did as Buddy walks forlornly away. 

Branagh dwells on the father and mother’s love for each other. They are given two opportunities to dance in the film, for no demonstrable reason. The songs of Van Morrison, the Irish soul singer, are prominent on the soundtrack. The family go to the movies twice, the second time on Buddy’s birthday, to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang. We are thereafter subjected to two choruses of Dick Van Dyke’s singing the theme song. 

Pop is taken ill and is hospitalized. His death is the deciding factor for the family’s emigration to England. They all board a bus at the end of the block. It’s old granny who stays, alone after the death of Pop. Judi Dench, as Granny, who is made by a merciless closeup to look quite a bit older than she is, speaks the last line, “Go. Go now. And don’t look back. I love you, son.” At the very end of the film Branagh dedicates the film “For the ones who stayed For the ones who left And for all the ones who were lost”. 

Belfast is a rather puzzling film simply because it isn’t really about Belfast. You see the city’s name at the film’s opening and at its closing, and the film is punctuated with panoramic views of the city. Buddy’s family is Protestant, and he is drawn into an act of violence only once by an older friend – when he is enlisted in the looting of a Catholic grocery store. She tells him to steal something, anything, so he grabs a box of detergent for his mother. His mother drags him back to the store, still being looted, to return it. 

Like vinyl records, black and white films are making a curious comeback. It doesn’t provide Belfast with any kind of nostalgic patina. Quite the contrary, the images are extremely sharp. But why they’re black and white isn’t certain. It certainly doesn’t contribute to a sense of the period. On three occasions, Branagh switches to color - for the movies the family goes to see, and a stage production of A Christmas Carol. Cleverly, Branagh shows us the color stage scene reflected in black and white Granny's glasses. Most of the scenes inside and around the family’s home were shot with an extreme wide angle lens – as if, not content with Panavision, Branagh wanted to further expand his narrow focus. Somehow, it manages to emphasize the smallness of the house and the back stoop. 

The grownups in the cast – Jamie Dornan, Caitriona Balfe, Judi Dench, and Ciarán Hinds – are excellent. Jude Hill, however, as Buddy, is well coached but utterly lacking in conviction. Branagh wants us to know that his parents were perpetually in love. As I mentioned, they’re given two opportunities to dance together, and on both occasions Dornan ends up lifting Balfe off the ground, which must’ve been rough on Jamie’s back, since Caitriona is a strapping woman at least as tall as he is. 

One thing I learned in my research for the film is my coincidentally having the same last name as Kenneth Branagh’s mother, Frances (née Harper). As an Irish-American, I found the film’s last scene deeply moving. Judi Dench walks slowly back to her door, and turns to look at the bus carrying her son and his family. As she speaks her last line, we see Buddy turn his head and look back at her. She closes the door and we see her rest her head on the glass, her eyes closed. Branagh reminds us that it's as much her story as the departing family's.