Belfast is the latest from Actor/Director Kenneth Branagh who is behind the first Thor film as well as Murder on the Orient Express and the upcoming Death on the Nile. He also is responsible for the foul Artemis Fowl. Apart from the live-action Cinderella remake he did with Lily James as the lead, I haven’t been convinced by Branagh's work at all. Now, Belfast is quite drastically different from any of his other films with it not being an adaptation of a novel, Shakespearian play, comic, or previous film. With an original screenplay and the background of the story being directly inspired by Branagh’s own childhood and more specifically life-changing moments when he was 9.
Essentially, Belfast tries to be a time capsule into the past from possibly the kid's perspective? But also not really, but maybe that could have been quite compelling. Instead, this movie feels very safe in a way to appeal to as broad an audience as possible. I am bringing this up because as far as Buddy’s understanding of the issues pertaining to his family and hometown goes, he is quite aware and informed, but still, it feels like the bigger conflict of The Troubles is more of a backdrop to an attempted ensemble character piece.
The overall conflict never really goes beyond: Protestant vs. Catholics and IRA vs. British military forces. Now within that conflict, we get characters who aren’t so one-sided and have a bit of depth to themselves, but there are also very melodramatic elements of transparent setups in character motivations that feel like they only exist to aid the plot in the simplest way possible. Arguably, that is why Belfast will have quite a decent shot at taking home awards.
But I can’t shake the feeling of a certain hollowness I sensed throughout the entire watch time. The performances I quite fine, Jude Hill, only 9 years of age himself while performing, does an impressive job in most scenes, although as always with very young actors, it starts to become very shaky when it’s less about reaction and more line readings and acting. Everyone else didn’t really do much for me to be frank. They were all fine, but with a very predictable screenplay and moments that are featured in practically every single one of these period piece family dramas in form of the no-bullshit talk with the grandpa among other moments.
All in all, Belfast is Branagh's personal love letter to his own family and Belfast as a city. Although most of the film is in black and white, the opening shows modern Belfast as a beautiful and inviting sight to behold before contrasting it with The Struggles of half a decade in the past. It just really didn’t do it for me.
Now, stylistically we have digitally shot black and white film with Haris Zambarloukos behind the camera. The frequent use of deep focus for the staging and blocking of scenes did not go unnoticed by me - but not in a good way. More often than not I noticed the camera as a looming presence in the film, framing its characters as artistically as possible without actually doing anything interesting.
Belfast is Branagh’s personal love letter to his family and hometown. Unfortunately, it’s a very safe approach in storytelling paired with an attempted artsy black and white look that falls flat for me.
As you can see, I have many qualms with Belfast and it honestly feels like Green Book all over again.
5/10
