Belfast

A very solid if unremarkable coming of age film set during the Irish troubles of 1969.

This movie was very reminiscent of the 1987 film "Hope and Glory," only that film was much better. In fact, this movie reminded me a lot of the kinds of films that came out in the late 80s and throughout the 90s, accomplished and pleasing Oscar bait movies that gave not especially sophisticated adult film audiences products that were good and substantial enough to make them feel like they were seeing something important but safe enough to never make them feel challenged or threatened.

For me, what gave "Belfast" its heart was not the central story about a little boy and the parents who want to give him a better life than war-torn Ireland allows, but rather the side story about the enduring love between his grandparents, played by Ciaran Hinds and Judi Dench. The best scenes in the movie were the ones featuring those two, and Dench's scene at the end is the one that lingered with me most. I was thrilled to pieces when both of them were recognized with Academy Award nominations.

Grade: A-

Writer-director Kenneth Branagh tells a semi-autobiographical story. Young Jude Hill is playing in the street outside his row house, when suddenly Protestant gangsters march through and smash every Catholic household's windows, rip up the paving stones, and drive everyone, Catholic and Protestant alike to refuge. Soon the British Army is setting up occupation of the street, as the neighbors help each other, and Hill's immense extended family, presided over by grandfather Ciarán Hinds and grandmother Judi Dench seem to take everything in stride. But there's family problems as well as religious ones.

This movie reminded me of 2018's Roma, an important moment in history through the eyes of a boy filtered through the adult sensibilities of the film maker.... but without the extreme deep-focus camerawork that kept me wondering when we were going to start telling another story. Branagh gives us visual fireworks, with the attack on the street shown from young Hill's perspective, with a double-360-degrees panorama in slow motion.

In the end, the story is less about flashy camerawork or the religio-political uproar of the times, but how a loving, committed, decent family gets on with life, raising children, earning a living, and loving each other. Most stories about love are about the big events, the flashy events. This one shows us the day-to-day of love while everyone else is worrying about the big events.

"Go. Go now. Don't look back. I love you, son." Granny (Judi Dench)

You can complain that Kenneth Branagh his filtered his 9-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill) through his own rose-colored revery of the 1969 bloody ethno-nationalist uprising in Belfast, and you'd be right. However, like all of us remembering, that past is most pleasantly remembered through the lens of loving family struggle that binds.

While Branagh doesn't shy away from how the Northern Ireland Troubles between Protestants and Catholics was challenging all families, his endearing portrait of Buddy as a curious and sweet, albeit precocious, school boy for whom the biggest conflicts are figuring out how not to emigrate from Belfast because of the violence and connecting with the elusive little blonde who occupies the top of her class with Buddy.

One of the best movies of the year, Belfast gives scant references to Branagh's eventual rise to the top of his filmmaking class and emphasizes the effect a loving family can have on a small-town lad. Especially nostalgic is his interaction with his Granny (Judi Dench) and Pop (Ciaran Hinds), who best represent the benign Belfast world, the one so difficult to leave behind.

Branagh brilliantly chooses a sharp black and white for most of the film, as if to say, "Unlike the color opening, my story will be realistic in a cinematic sense that black and white usually represented in mid-20th century films." Adding a bunch of bad-boy Van Morrison tunes is a perfect surround-sound for the contradictions of Buddy's coming of age in a civil war that is both secular and religious.

The joy of this film is the 9-year-old's warm, nostalgic remembrance of a war-torn land. Belfast confirms the suspicion that those of us lucky enough to grow up in a loving family can survive war and even coronaviruses and become world-renowned filmmakers.

Belfast is one of Kenneth Branagh's best films, and that is saying much.

Greetings from Lithuania.

"Belfast" (2021) is a wonderful movie written and directed by Kenneth Branagh. Clearly inspired on this person's childhood, this movie is not about religious disputes or anything like that. Its a movie about one men's memories about his childhood. What things look to him at the moment is what we see true his eye. And despite living on a different place and time me myself in my childhood i could easily relate to it because everyone remember their grandfather and grandmother for being ones heroes and etc. Their first best friends, their moms and dads and their inner backyard as being center of the world. At the end of this wonderful movie i remembered "Tokyo Story" (1953) because of its similar feeling and ideas it gave to me.

Overall, perfectly paced at running time 1 h 35 min "Belfast" is one of the best movies i saw in some time. Directing and writing were probably best Kenneth Branagh has ever done. Acting was amazing by everyone and cinematography and art design really place one in that place and time. Great movie.

Kenneth Branagh delivers a beautiful, heartfelt film about a family in 1969 Belfast. Branagh's love for the town of Belfast is palpable. The cast is superb--especially, Caitriona Balfe, whose portrayal as a wife and mother, torn between staying in her native Belfast as religious and political violence escalates or moving to England for her family's safety, is heartbreaking.