A new film by Kenneth Branagh in our cinemas: after “Murder on the Nile”, released a couple of weeks ago, the protagonist of this weekend is “Belfast”, probably the most personal film of all those directed by the director, born right in the capital of Northern Ireland in 1960.
Taking inspiration from his childhood, Branagh recounts the Belfast of 1969, at a time when clashes between Protestants and Catholics inflame the city. Meanwhile, little Buddy’s life is about to change definitively: overwhelmed by debts and alarmed by the guerrilla atmosphere that reigns, his parents are considering moving to England. For the child it would mean saying goodbye to everything he loves: his city, his classmate Catherine, his friends and his grandparents. Written by Branagh himself, who won the Golden Globe for best screenplay with this script, “Belfast” is a film that looks directly at his personal story, through a gaze aimed both at exorcising one’s past and at nostalgically recounting what it was the Belfast it used to be.
Opened by an ugly incipit in which we pass in a too scholastic way from today’s color to yesterday’s black and white, the film thrives on a good photograph of the time it tells, trying to make us empathize with the little protagonist.
A fluctuating outcome
If the writing is delicate and the representation of the protagonist’s family sweet and touching at the right point, the film falls into various rhetorical and blackmail sequences, which also try to misuse the cinephile passion of little Buddy. combined with that of the relationships between the different generations, it is nevertheless incisive, thanks also to the beautiful interpretations of actors of the caliber of Judi Dench and Ciarán Hinds, in the role of the two grandparents of the child / alter ego of the director. the emotions that Branagh put into this film, however, one cannot fail to notice a considerable dose of cunning to force the audience’s emotions a little and some passages too constructed at a table, unnecessary given the strength of the starting subject.
With seven Oscar nominations, ‘Belfast’ will most likely not return empty-handed from the ceremony scheduled for March 27th.