THE OPINION OF THE “WORLD” – WHY NOT
In autobiographical films, it happens that the directors are moved by the little being that they were, with no other stake than their own emotion. Summer 1969. Buddy, a 9-year-old Irishman, lives in a working-class neighborhood where he is free to go wherever he pleases. The neighbors know him, his grandparents are not far away, his cousin Moira, a little older than him, takes him on his clandestine adventures and his lover agrees to let herself be observed through the window. That summer, as Neil Armstrong takes the first step on the moon, riots break out: Protestants burn down the homes of Catholics and good neighbors suddenly become sworn enemies.
Whereas Belfast could have been a tender and romantic work on a childhood struck by the beginnings of the Northern Irish conflict in the hometown of the director, he struggles to weave links between his stories, torn between the novel of a civil war and the temptation of diary that wants to tell everything. Falling into the trap of his mini-me, Kenneth Branagh unfolds in black and white the small and big moments of his young years like a series of glossy vignettes: Buddy picks wild flowers to offer them to Catherine; Buddy hopes to get a good grade in school so he can sit next to her; Buddy witnesses his parents’ arguments; Buddy steals a packet of Omo laundry detergent, his mother’s favorite brand; Buddy listens to his grandparents telling him about the past…
Low-angle shots and dives
Symptomatic of the director’s fiery nostalgia, cinema scenes present his iconostasis in color, from John Wayne to Gary Cooper but also Raquel Welch (One million years BC1966, by Don Chaffey) and the racing car by Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (1968), by Ken Hughes. Branagh has recently taken a liking to four-star casting adaptations of the works of Agatha Christie (The crime of the Orient Express in 2017 and Death on the Nilereleased on February 9) whose redundant effects can be found here.
In fact, far from accessing the charm of the Turkish delight stolen by the hero, Belfast, nominated seven times for the Oscars (including best picture and best director), imposes far too many things on us, in particular, the constant adoption of the point of view of Buddy, with the help of low angles – he is a child, he looks up – and dives – his room is on the first floor, he bends down to observe his parents. To this must be added the war effort to ransack at regular intervals the street nicely decorated with vintage posters where the plot is located.
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