Who can deny that Kenneth Branagh is the filmmaker pi dandy & trendy of the 2000s, a fine type of actor, director and comedian capable of alternating entertainment and author’s reflection, the classics with historical blockbusters, comedy with thriller. In short, to transform chocolate into pure gold. Able to switch between two mighty meat loaves like Dunkirk e Tenet to the mysteries of Agatha Christie, Murder on the Orient Express e Murder on the Nile. The most agile contemporary interpreter of the Shakespearean repertoire, from Hamlet to Macbeth. It is the most Hollywood of British directors. Belfast his most intimate, heartfelt work, perhaps even suffered.
One memoir autobiographical immersed in an incisive black and white, with three scenes only stained by color, about KB’s Irish childhood, in the running for seven Oscars, including the most important: Best Film, Best Director, Best Original Screenplay, Best Supporting Actors. The B / N filters the nostalgia as it was for Roma di Alfonso Cuaron. The child’s gaze on misery and ruin adds a neorealist touch reminiscent of postwar Italian cinema. We all have a story to tell, and what makes us different is not how the story ends but how it begins.
Here Branagh, born in Belfast in 1960, recounts the tumultuous routine of a working-class family and their young son Buddy (Jude Hill) during the civil war between Protestants (the majority) and Catholics. In question, the membership of Ulster in the United Kingdom. In the Ireland of the troubles, Buddy plays football on the street, reads Thor’s adventures, overcomes barricades and snipers. He does not understand divisions, unrest, he adapts to sacrifices. The carpenter father (Jamie Dornan), who works in England, would like to relocate the whole family because the country is no longer safe.
Meanwhile, Buddy becomes an adult. Around him, his mother (a magnificent Caitriona Balfe), grandparents (Ciaran Hinds and Judi Dench), neighbors, school, the courtyard, who leaves and who remains under the bombs. Figures and small figures of strong symbolic significance in the poor and torn Belfast of the clashes and religious face to face.
Buddy doesn’t want to know about leaving delightful Catherine. As a perfect alter ego of Branagh, he succumbs to the hypnotic charm of cinema: see A million years ago with Raquel Welch, Citty Citty Bang Bang, The Man Who Killed Liberty Valance by John Ford e High noon by Fred Zinnemann. The blond’s point of view crosses the film accompanied by the music of Van Morrison and becomes a kind of secular prayer. History passes by the house and relives through the TV screens. Branagh focuses on the fresco, now subtle, now muscular, on heart-breaking detail, on descriptive dynamics, on poetic dialogues. As for Paolo Sorrentino and his was the hand of Godalso Belfast a declaration of love towards the city where it all started.
BELFAST by Kenneth Branagh
(Great Britain, 2021, duration 107 ‘)
con Jamie Dornan, Caitriona Balfe, Judi Dench, Ciaran Hinds, Lara McDonnell, Gerard Horan
Rating: *** 1/2 out of 5
In the halls
February 26, 2022 | 07:53
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