Belfast by Kenneth Branagh.

Until last night I hadn’t watched a film in a cinema for about eight years. I think The Lady In The Van with Maggie Smith was the last film I went to see. I have been looking forward to seeing Belfast for a few months now and had heard great reports of it from friends who had seen it in the USA where it was released a lot earlier than here. The main reason I wanted to see it was because Van Morrison provided most of the music for the soundtrack. Also, being from an Irish background I was interested in the subject matter. My friends Kate & Dave said they would like to go as well, so we set off yesterday evening to the Odeon in Trowbridge. 

The film opens with scenes of modern Belfast showing the iconic H & W cranes and the Titanic quarter, which won’t do Belfast tourism any harm. This is accompanied by an excellent new song by Van called Down To Joy (Not to be confused with an unreleased demo song of the same title Van made years ago). The story follows the adventures of a nine years old Protestant boy Buddy played by Jude Hill whose performance is quite brilliant considering his young age. Buddy is a fictionalised version of the director Kenneth Branagh who was born in Belfast and attended Grove Primary School. 

Odeon, Trowbridge.

Kenneth Branagh deftly steers clear of making many political points about The Troubles in the film. He avoids looking at the issues which brought Belfast to this situation, apart from showing how a peaceful community can be intimidated and destroyed by a mob who are little better than gangsters. The film is a coming-of-age type film. Buddy is in love with a girl in his class called Catherine who is Catholic. That surprised me because I thought Catholic kids and Protestant kids went to different schools. We also see Buddy’s growing interest in television, films and drama which is how the young Branagh must have started out. We see Buddy watching such things as Star Trek, 1,000,000 Years BC, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and High Noon. The song Do Not Forsake Me, Oh My Darling sung by Tex Ritter in High Noon won an Oscar for best original song in 1952, so it would seem like perfect symmetry if Down To Joy won this year’s Oscar. There is also a great scene where Granny played by Judi Dench takes Buddy to see a play of A Christmas Carol with Joseph Tomelty as Jacob Marley.

There are some excellent performances from all the cast as well as Jude Hill. I was very impressed with Caitriona Balfe as Ma. She has it all in my opinion, a great actress with star quality. Ciaran Hinds was also wonderful and humorous as Buddy’s grandfather Pop in such scenes as helping Buddy with his arithmetic homework. Despite the often-tragic events depicted, there is a lot of humour in this film, such as when a character says that the Irish must leave their country otherwise the world wouldn’t have any pubs. In another scene Buddy is goaded by bad girl Moira into taking part in the looting of a supermarket. He steals a box of washing powder, and when Ma shouts, “Why did you steal that?”, Buddy says, “It’s biological”.

I must get back to Van Morrison because I know a lot of Van fans will read this. Lots of little scenes reminded me of Van. There is a street scene where kids are swinging on a rope attached to a lamppost which reminded me of ‘Playing around Mrs Kelly’s lamp’ from his song On Hyndford St. In another scene Buddy’s dad (Jamie Dornan) puts a bet on a horse called Moondance at 7/2. I couldn’t get over how great the music sounded in the cinema. I was particularly moved by Carrickfergus which perfectly fitted the emotion of the story-line. Other great Van songs included Bright Side Of The Road, Warm Love, Jackie Wilson Says, Days Like This, Stranded and the film ended with the sublime And The Healing Has Begun. 

As we were leaving the cinema Kate said, “I think I have just become a Van Morrison fan”. I urge you to see this great film, and to the Oscars people, I would please like to see Oscars for Jude Hill, Caitriona Balfe, best soundtrack and best original song. Thank you.