Written by Lou Thomas
Translator: Qin Tian
Proofreading: Easy two three
Source: Sight & Sound (October 16, 2021)
Belfast is Kenneth Branagh's 18th film and his most personal work to date. Set against the backdrop of the 1969 sectarian riots in Northern Ireland, this semi-autobiographical film tells an elegant, moving story between nine-year-old Buddy (Jude Hill) and his family.
In August 1969, violence broke out in the Protestant neighborhood where Badi's family was located. Catholic families were attacked by Protestant faithful and radical adherents, and cars were blown up. Soldiers erected barricades at the end of the streets of residential neighborhoods, and British troops soon set up checkpoints in the area. Buddy's father (Jamie Donan), a carpenter working in England, was stopped at a checkpoint by a soldier and then harassed by a local mob who was keen to get his two children to join their "gang".
In this dangerous environment, he began planning to immigrate to Canada with his wife and children. For Buddy's mother (Katrina Balf) and the entire family — including grandma (Judy Dench) and grandpa (Seren Sid), who may stay behind — leaving Belfast would be heartbreaking. Do you survive this most difficult period, or do you abandon everything familiar and run to a new life far away?
Branagh assembled a group of good actors – newcomer actor Jude Hill, British national treasure actor Judy Dench and the ever-loyal and reliable Seren Sid. The film's riot scenes are both dangerous and a test for them, but it is the sincerity and humor of the film that makes Belfast a strong contender for major film festivals.
Kenneth Branagh and cinematographer Harris Jembarricks shot the film in light and shadow, in black and white tones, documenting belfast's past, which is now very modern. Nine beautiful songs from the film were sung by local Belfast singer Van Morrison.
On March 23, 2020, Branagh began writing the script for Belfast, and British Prime Minister Boris Johnson had just announced the lockdown, and Branagh spent eight weeks writing the script, as he told us: "Christopher Nolan finished watching the movie and said, you have written it in eight weeks, fifty years." 」 If these childhood memories have been in my mind long enough, it won't be too hard to write it out.
The film was filmed in August and September of the same year, and the crew completed the shooting in a specially built scene to avoid the complicated situation of cross-infection and epidemic situation of staff. But Branagh also said: "We wanted to recreate the landscape of 1969 and find the real Belfast, but the place that really fit my memory no longer existed, so I had to show my hometown in a modern, mainstream way."
On the day of The Belfast premiere at the London Film Festival, Kenneth Branagh spoke to us about the film, his childhood experience of stealing chocolates from a sweet shop, and how his love of Westerns influenced the film.
Q: Belfast tells a very personal story, why did you choose to write it down?
KENNETH BRANAY: I think, as Nolan said, we've shown in a very short time what has changed in Belfast over the last fifty years. Leaving Belfast was definitely an important turning point in my life, as it was in the midst of violence and chaos. This has led to a profound change. For me, life really wasn't what it was anymore. It has affected many people in profound ways.
But how to write down these memories has always bothered me. I've written a lot of things over the years — scripts, novels, some ideas I'm writing, but they're all pressed to the bottom of the box, but this time, the lockdown reminds me of the story of Belfast.
In 1969, when the Belfast riots broke out, the streets were blocked and barricades were set up at both ends of the streets. You must be checked in and out. You need permission to get into the street you live on – it's a rather strange experience. Police and soldiers appear in front of you in unexpected ways, and friends and neighbors are gone.
Of course, in the end, our old neighbors all left Belfast, freed from the poor days when neighbors needed to take care of each other to raise a child, but this collective, community life, and the experience of those people benefited me a lot. The lockdown of the pandemic began to make me look inside myself, and it pried open my childhood memories.
Q: Is the reality in the movie far from the reality in your memory?
Kenneth Branagh: The reality in the film is presented through the eyes of a nine-year-old boy. Thus, he already has the initial ability to observe things and people, such as the image of his parents, which is more fascinating than reality. I think my parents are very attractive, playing them Jamie Donan and Katrina Baraf is really handsome and beautiful, and there must be an electric flint part of my parents' feelings, it is love and passion that accompany them through so many years, through the ups and downs of life.
Presenting an objective, authentic life is not an easy task, but I want to show fifty years of life through the eyes of a child who loves movies. Westerns teach us how to distinguish between good guys and bad guys, and a way to understand justice.
But a large part of this is based on historical facts. To take an extreme example in the film, I was indeed involved in the theft of that supermarket, my mother did drag me back to the store and asked me to put the laundry detergent back, and what I did was ridiculous, and she realized that I had fallen prey to those fanatical thugs and maybe something was going to change.
Q: Have you ever stolen desserts from Mr. Singer's Sweet Shop like the little boy in the film?
KENNETH BRANAGH: Yeah, now it seems like I'm really ridiculous. The shop stealing in the movie happened almost instantaneously, and I didn't know why I did it, and I was shocked by what I did.
When that policeman showed up, I thought Stasi was spying on us. The owner of the shop knows all the people in Belfast. It was just around the corner at the end of the street, not far from where we were staying. We are not so sensitive to this.
So, when the policeman came to my house afterwards, I felt that there was a sinister and terrifying atmosphere in him. Even though it seems to me that the police are all like this, as you can feel from the missionary missionary in the movie, I think all the authority figures are very scary.
Q: Did Belfast feature "The Flying Universal Vehicle" (1968), John Wayne's Westerns, and even clips from Star Trek, and did they have a big impact on you as a child at the time?
KENNETH BRANAGH: They somehow led me into the works of the cinematic temple. Star Trek is an important memory of my childhood. It was 1969, two years after the original series was made. It will be played at tea time on Saturday afternoon. At that time, my family and I would always visit my grandmother. When they talk about adults, I watch Star Trek.
50 years later, I finished a recital of a Shakespeare play with William Shatner, and I couldn't shake off the image of James Corker in his role on Star Trek. He was happy I remember.
Westerns have a strong exotic feel. I love the beautiful picture of westerns like paintings, especially John Ford's Westerns on TV. The Searcher (1956) was a great, colorful Western, but I was watching a black-and-white version on TV. I was equally impressed by The Two Tigers and the Dragon (1962), with the glittering John Wayne, James Stewart, Lee Marvin and Lee Van Cliff. The characters in these Westerns are tall and imposing, and some of them make me feel as if they are right next to me.
The name of the villain in Belfast, Billy Clanton, comes from a gang member in the classic Western film Dragon Tiger (1957). Colin Morgan played the villain well, and he reminded me of jack Parrance, the villain in Wilderness (1953), who had unforgettable, shiny black hair. As the protagonists of the Western, they are too manly.
Q: Probably the most iconic historical event for the UK and Ireland from after World War II to the present is the riots in Northern Ireland. What do you think about real-life political issues?
KENNETH BRANAGH: Like I just said, I knew I was going to look at it through the lens of a nine-year-old. We often adjusted the camera's perspective to photograph the riots either through barbed wire, through summer heatwaves, or through the railings of stairs. Attentive viewers will find that whenever the situation becomes turbulent, the road under the boy's feet is paved with sand, not asphalt, and all the asphalt is piled up at both ends of the street.
The little boy seems to have become a spectator of the riot, and in this sense, this perspective makes Belfast not very political, or gives a sense of historical patchwork. Ninety percent of the historical footage in the film is real, and their corresponding historical nodes in the film are also accurate.
Q: Judy Dench is a friend you've worked with for years, can you talk about your collaboration with her in this film?
KENNETH BRANAGH: I ran to her for this film, but unfortunately, she was old and her eyesight was no longer able to read the script. I had to read the whole script to her and then put everything on the show. It was an expendable experience, but it also taught me that preparing and shooting Belfast would be an emotional experience for me.
Judy Dench also has Irish ancestry, and she quickly understands the character's place in the film, a character who silently observes those around her. She often sat by the window and looked at the outside world. Her presence seems to remind people, "I'm not deaf, I just don't want you to ignore the old women who do housework, and in the end you will find that we are the masters here."
She has a great relationship with her grandson and the love between them is not limited by age. When Judy Dench first appeared, the first thing she did was go straight to Jude Hill, and everything in her life was about him. As a result, her efforts were ultimately exchanged for the departure of her grandchildren and children, who went to a good life, leaving only herself.
Q: How did you and cinematography create the visual style of the film?
KENNETH BRANAGH: We knew from the beginning that we wanted to shoot from a boy's point of view, but also to include a lot of acting elements. There's a scene in the movie where It's Christmas, where Buddy, played by Jude, has just been told he's going to have to leave Belfast. Jude's position is in one corner of the frame, in the right foreground, with his brother and parents behind him. This lens was inspired by the Orson Wells-esque lensing— a deep-focus lens that makes the conversation in the background clear.
On the morning of the filming of the scene, Jude had just finished filming the riot scene and he fell asleep. We told him to be quiet in the background, just like he did with his own parents.
Frankly, Monument Valley is an iconic sight in John Ford's Westerns, and we've always wanted to find a unique visual style for Belfast. We tried to construct the boy's point of view through the shooting of the boom and the panoramic lens. We also try to find the poetry of Bresson's films, in which the lives of ordinary people can also be a poetic dimension, and through the lens, every ordinary person seems ready to confide in you about their lives.
The images that appear in Belfast are all in color, and the widescreen films of the '60s certainly gave us that imagination. I was really shocked when I first saw films like Yellow Submarine (1968), and later I found that these films were in a way like visual hallucinogens, and they were as beautiful as dreams to me as a child.
Yellow Submarine
In my vision, the latitude of Belfast is the same as that of Reykjavik, where I spent a long time as a child, and I chose to give color to the images to highlight their meaning. They can take me out of ordinary life, and what I don't know is that they also keep me with movies for the rest of my life.