Belfast: A Coming-of-Age Nostalgia Trip

Belfast is an interesting case study about how important direction is in shaping the way an audience views a narrative feature. Film as a medium is unique because it allows the viewer to extrapolate key information from the movie from the cinematography that can reframe the narrative of the movie. Ordinarily, a movie like Belfast would be rife with issues in terms of pacing, structure and what could broadly be considered plot holes.

The plot of Belfast largely follows Buddy’s journey through life as a child during a period of political upheaval. The movie does not just follow Buddy, the audience is treated as an equal to Buddy. What this does is allows the audience to go on the same journey he does, with the same amount of information he does. The audience does not have access to scenes and information Buddy does not have, and this is relayed through the almost voyeuristic camera angles. Beyond keeping the camera low, about even with Buddy in terms of height, when Buddy (and the audience) enter a scene with important information, the camera is brought in with movement that creates the illusion that the viewer is walking into the scene with Buddy.

This ultimately works to moderate effect within the movie. It is interesting to see a coming-of-age piece that treats the audience the same way it treats its protagonist, but at the same time it makes the socio-political backdrop of the movie more of window-dressing than something important to be engaged with. When a movie sets itself during a period of political upheaval, it would behoove the movie to make the political upheaval integral to the plot. That’s not to say that the political backdrop of 1969 Ireland is completely irrelevant to the plot; it just does not engage with the main plot in a meaningful way except on two occasions.

The problem this creates is that it produces a diminutive take on what children can be expected to understand and process in this way. To this day children live and grow up in war zones and areas of political unrest and they do still have to engage in and process the emotions that go along with this upbringing. To just dismiss this entire conflict that happened as “Buddy doesn’t understand what’s going on therefore it’s not important to the movie” is underserving the needs of the movie. This is especially true when we compare this to say HBO’s Watchmen or Best Picture winner Roma, both of which engaged with the political story while still not dismissing the impact that it had on the characters. The fact of the matter is the political upheaval can be completely removed from the movie and the movie still works just as well about a child growing up in a household with marital strife caused by financial strain.

No production is a one-person operation, and this is one of those movies that is pulled from mediocrity to its above average position with one or two outstanding parts that, had they not been there, would have made the movie a forgettable mess. Had it not been for the acting performances across the board and the interesting cinematography, this would have just been an aggressively fine film (much like Branagh’s prior movies Thor and Murder on the Orient Express, both of which are referenced in subtle easter eggs) instead of a movie that is probably in solid contention for a Best Picture nomination in a 10-movie field.

This movie is worth a watch; however, it is not worth rushing out to see in a theater. A viewer would not be missing out if they elected to wait until this movie was available on streaming or on cable even to watch it, that said it is worth seeing however it can be seen.

Rating: 7.5/10