Belfast from writer/director Kenneth Branagh won this year’s TIFF People’s Choice Award. Previous winners have gone on to do well during award season, most receiving nominations if not the hardware. I’d be surprised if award season nominations don’t add on to this win.
Set in the title Belfast, it blends comedy and drama through the eyes of Buddy (played by newcomer Jude Hill) in a coming-of-age tale set in 1969 during the Troubles. His perspective, his innocence, created a good window to view the conflict, and Jude Hill gave a performance that should garner attention like Jacob Tremblay in Room, Brooklyn Prince in The Florida Project, or Roman Griffin Davis in Jojo Rabbit. His Buddy steers the audience around the film’s world of Belfast and the divides both out on the streets and within his family. The film not only followed him but often was filmed from low angles to emphasize his perspective of Belfast.
The film opened and closed on Belfast in the present day, in living colour, but the film was extensively black & white. This choice may have been to reflect an idea of looking back on the past in black & white, or it could’ve been as a means of adding distance, or perhaps it was to further tie/parallel the conflict to the classic westerns that Buddy loved and was often found watching in the film (while his parents fought about money/leaving Belfast downstairs). The western movies and the layout of their street, paired with the film being in black, really foreshadowed the standoff that would take place at the climax of the film. Also, the person that embodies the black hat in the film is named Billy Clanton, which history buffs will remember from the O.K. Corral. Or perhaps from My Darling Clementine, which is not one of the Western movies Buddy watches in the course of the film.
Buddy’s Ma (played by Caitriona Balfe) and Pa (played by Jamie Dornan) don’t see eye to eye for much of the film. Pa has already left Belfast to work and is ready to make a permanent move, while Ma doesn’t want to take her kids from a place where everyone knows their kids, loves their kids, where they can play anywhere, and where she believes people will look out for them. The film starts with a riot on their street, one she has to sweep Buddy off and away from the melee and under the table to wait it out. But even still, she isn’t afraid. I did wonder if her reaction would’ve been different if her family had been Catholic instead of Protestant, as the Catholic houses were the ones targeted in this riot. Pa, who wasn’t present for the riot, and only sees the aftermath (AKA the addition of a checkpoint to enter), isn’t motivated to move by a desire to protect his family, his motivation is debt and freedom from it if they move. But perhaps that’s because he is oblivious to the danger, having been absent for the riot. It’s only after the standoff on the street that the pair find themselves aligned. Then instead of arguments, we are treated to a scene of Pa singing and dancing along to Everlasting Love for Ma… at a wake. It may seem like an odd choice, but from a film that also manages to play “Danny Boy” for comedy, it’s charming. The film also fittingly utilizes a lot of Van Morrison in its soundtrack.
While the film was mostly in black & white, there were moments of colour outside of the establishing and closing shot. Colour was present when Buddy and his family went to the theatre, the actors on stage were in colour, and the movies in the cinema were in colour. Buddy loved film/theatre; it was his escape. If the film is meant to represent the memory of the past from Buddy’s perspective, it makes sense that these things would be what was in colour, as they would be the most vivid, the things he’d want to remember. A particularly fine moment of escapism is the family watching Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.
It took the lockdown for Kenneth Branagh to be able to look back on his early years in Belfast and tell a story that is semi-autobiographical about a time when things were simple and precious before they got taken away. Covid lockdown ignited that feeling, and it unlocked the door to his past, making this film possible.
It’s still too early to tell, but I think TIFF’s reputation for singling out award season contenders is safe with Belfast.