Film Review: Belfast

Director: Kenneth Branagh
Starring: Jamie Dornan, Caitríona Balfe, Ciarán Hinds
Running time: 98 Minutes

Northern Ireland’s capital, Belfast, is a city of stunning Victorian architecture, warm and good-humoured people, world-class centres of learning and nightlife to rival Nottingham’s (yes, I said it). It is also a city which, until recently, was the frontline of an undeclared civil war, and which has endured more history than any city should have to.  

Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast opens with richly-coloured shots of the modern city; the iconic Harland and Wolf cranes, the gleaming new Titanic quarter, and Stormount castle, headquarters of the oft-suspended Northern Irish government’s civil service. A train roars past, and suddenly all is black and white as we are engulfed in the terraced street of a working-class Protestant neighbourhood in 1969.  

The sixties may have been swinging this side of the Irish Sea, but they were a time of tension in Northern Ireland. As those tensions explode into the violence of the Troubles in 1969, two working class Belfast adults, known only as Pa (Jamie Dornan) and Ma (Caitríona Balfe), grapple with the question of whether to move their family to England to escape the escalating violence.  

The conflicts, both the Troubles and the strain on their marriage brought on by the violence, money troubles and Pa’s job, which takes him to England for weeks at a time, are seen through the eyes of Buddy (newcomer Jude Hill, who gives a magical performance), their nine year-old son. 

Belfast is a beautiful film. There is no other word for it. Sir Kenneth Branagh’s love for his hometown shines throughout, echoed by many of his characters. Even when things get progressively worse, the phrase “leave Belfast?” is often repeated as though utterly unthinkable.  

Yes, this is a Belfast wracked by sectarian conflict and patrolled by armalite-wielding soldiers. But it’s also the Belfast where everyone knows their neighbours’ names and children slay imaginary dragons in the street. It’s a place where danger lurks around the corner but humanity cannot help but break through. In one scene, Ma is interrogated about her husband’s movements by an indifferent British soldier. In another, a few minutes later, two soldiers, their rifles held awkwardly in one hand, help Pa move furniture. 

The relationship between Buddy and his mischievous grandparents, Pop (Ciarán Hinds) and Granny (Dame Judi Dench), provide the film with many poignantly funny moments. Hinds and Dench have great onscreen chemistry, their characters displaying their decades-old love through good-humoured bickering that will be familiar to any visitor to an Irish household.  

Buddy’s innocence and basic goodness are often used to explore the complexities and absurdities of the conflict. He naively cross-examines his friend Moira about how to tell the difference between Catholics and Protestants, and her ridiculous advice as to what to do should one be caught by a gang of Catholics (since they expect you to pretend to be Catholic, she explains, outsmart them by admitting to being Protestant). I defy anyone not to be charmed by his quest (aided and abetted by Pop) to win the heart of his primary school crush.  

Unlike other films set in Ireland’s conflict filled twentieth century, this is not a film about political leaders (like, say, Michael Collins), nor is it shown through the eyes of combatants for any one side (unlike Fifty Dead Men Walking, or The Wind that Shakes the Barley). It’s a film about ordinary people caught up in a conflict not of their making.  

In his interactions with his neighbours, Jamie Dornan’s Pa shows warmth and charm, but he brings the steely intensity he first showed in The Fall to bear in scenes in which he squares off with Loyalist paramilitary Billy Clanton (Merlin’s Colin Morgan) to protect his family.  

At its heart this is a character-driven drama, but cinema is a sensory medium and Branagh makes full use of this. The film is mostly shot in black and white, perhaps to illustrate the black-and-white, us versus them thinking of the Northern Ireland troubles. Exploding petrol bombs whoosh and roar to life, and army helicopters thunder overhead, while low camera angles make growling military vehicles and immaculately-uniformed policemen seem gigantic and terrifying.  

One tiny gripe: the accents. Generally, these were spot on – I was surprised to note that Cariona Balfe is not from Belfast at all, so flawless was her accent. However, Dench’s accent at times seems to veer from Belfast to Dublin, 200-odd miles down the road, and back again, within the course of a sentence. It’s a minor complaint, though, and not one that in any way spoils an otherwise outstanding performance in an outstanding film.  

Movingly dedicated to those who stayed, those who left, and those who were lost, Belfast is an impactful, funny and remarkable peek into the lives of those for whom the Northern Ireland Troubles were an everyday reality. 

Did you know? This is the sixth film collaboration between Kenneth Branagh and Judi Dench.

Belfast is now showing in cinemas across Nottingham.