Belfast (2021) Review

Title: Belfast
Year: 2021
Director: Kenneth Branagh 
Country: UK 
Language: English

Of all the films at Toronto International Film Festival, Kenneth Branagh's Belfast was my most anticipated, but unfortunately it sold out hours before I could redeem my ticket packages. This film was beloved at the festival, winning the coveted People's Choice Award. This award usually spells a Best Picture win at the Oscars. I personally think Steven Spielberg's West Side Story has it clinched, but I wouldn't be surprised if this won over it. 

In this film, a young boy (Jude Hill) and his working-class Belfast family experience the tumultuous late 1960s. Specifically, the beginning of Ireland's "Troubles". 

Considered Branagh's Roma, Belfast is an autobiographical film about one tumultuous period in his childhood; making it a poignant coming of age story and considerable lament for what Ireland had lost during its decades of strife. The film nostalgically conveys the setting in rich, expressive black-and-white photography. It not only deals with problems in a macro context (the problems within the country) but also micro (the problems within the family) 

Belfast is full with sweetness and warmth, while also giving us a fair amount of tension and turmoil. It's heartbreaking at times, but also has humorous moments. Branagh balances all these emotions fairly well, albeit it can come off as too sentimental considering Irish history gets worse much in the coming decades. The conflict depicted in this picture was thirty years long, lasting until 1998. I am a couple generations younger than Branagh, and I had friends who needed to leave Ireland. 

The worst year of "The Troubles" in Ireland was 1972 and this film is set in 1969. The German equivalent would be setting the film in 1933 and then ending it on a high note. A great film no doubt, but the ending is a bit insensitive. I feel this keeps Belfast from being as great as Roma. Alfonso Cauron's picture doesn't try to tack on escapism for the sake of pleasing an audience. Roma is a more authentic feeling picture.