Belfast. (15.)
Directed by Kenneth Branagh.
Starring Jude Hill, Caitríona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds, Colin Morgan and Judi Dench. Black and white. 98 mins.
If at first, you don't succeed try, try and try again. A fine sentiment but the course of trial and error has rarely veered so stubbornly and relentlessly towards error as in the directorial career of Kenneth Branagh. For over three decades he has directed three kinds of films: passable; lousy or Shakespeare. He’s like a high brow Ed Wood: that a man who has perpetrated atrocities like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; Sleuth AND Artemis Fowl can still find work is a testament to the loyalty of the theatre/ film chumocracy. Here, finally, is the pay off: a touching, charming vision of the black and white remembered streets of his childhood.
Belfast is seen through the eyes of our young Branagh substitute Buddy (Hill) and set in a single terraced street, home to the kind of close-knit working-class community that now exists only on the big screen. This childhood reverie last about five minutes. The scene where The Troubles break up this cosy enclave is the film's best set-piece, the camera revolving around from Buddy's shocked face to the masked sectarian hoodlums marching down the street and back again. Their arrival summons in an era of barricades, checkpoints and petrol bombs.
The Troubles loom over all aspects of life but the bulk of the film is a warm family drama. His father (Dornan) works away in London and wants to move the family out of Ireland. Mother (Balfe) wants to stay and young Buddy wants to play football and romance a catholic girl in his class. (Buddy also has a brother but the film almost entirely ignores him.)
Some will baulk at the black and white, but it looks great and Branagh draws perfect performances from his cast. Hill looks like his audition might have entailed him maintaining a slab of unmelted butter in his mouth for five minutes. Hinds and Dench are the twinkly scene-stealing grandparents though Dornan and Balfe, two performers that the big screen has previously failed to utilise fully, are the stand outs.
Branagh wrote the script, his first full-length original. A theme is how the escapism of the theatre and the moviehouse shaped his young mind and its enduring influence can be seen in the film’s only false step: a contrived cowboy film-style stand-off scene between provos and the police with the family in between. Other than that I guess the only real criticism is that the film is a little predictable. There’s no surprises but it’s exactly the film you expect and want it to be.
Directed by Kenneth Branagh.
Starring Jude Hill, Caitríona Balfe, Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds, Colin Morgan and Judi Dench. Black and white. 98 mins.
If at first, you don't succeed try, try and try again. A fine sentiment but the course of trial and error has rarely veered so stubbornly and relentlessly towards error as in the directorial career of Kenneth Branagh. For over three decades he has directed three kinds of films: passable; lousy or Shakespeare. He’s like a high brow Ed Wood: that a man who has perpetrated atrocities like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; Sleuth AND Artemis Fowl can still find work is a testament to the loyalty of the theatre/ film chumocracy. Here, finally, is the pay off: a touching, charming vision of the black and white remembered streets of his childhood.
Belfast is seen through the eyes of our young Branagh substitute Buddy (Hill) and set in a single terraced street, home to the kind of close-knit working-class community that now exists only on the big screen. This childhood reverie last about five minutes. The scene where The Troubles break up this cosy enclave is the film's best set-piece, the camera revolving around from Buddy's shocked face to the masked sectarian hoodlums marching down the street and back again. Their arrival summons in an era of barricades, checkpoints and petrol bombs.
The Troubles loom over all aspects of life but the bulk of the film is a warm family drama. His father (Dornan) works away in London and wants to move the family out of Ireland. Mother (Balfe) wants to stay and young Buddy wants to play football and romance a catholic girl in his class. (Buddy also has a brother but the film almost entirely ignores him.)
Some will baulk at the black and white, but it looks great and Branagh draws perfect performances from his cast. Hill looks like his audition might have entailed him maintaining a slab of unmelted butter in his mouth for five minutes. Hinds and Dench are the twinkly scene-stealing grandparents though Dornan and Balfe, two performers that the big screen has previously failed to utilise fully, are the stand outs.
Branagh wrote the script, his first full-length original. A theme is how the escapism of the theatre and the moviehouse shaped his young mind and its enduring influence can be seen in the film’s only false step: a contrived cowboy film-style stand-off scene between provos and the police with the family in between. Other than that I guess the only real criticism is that the film is a little predictable. There’s no surprises but it’s exactly the film you expect and want it to be.
