Belfast

 

               Jamie Dornan, Ciarán Hinds and Jude Hill in “Belfast.” Focus Features image via IMDB.

There's an air of inevitability finding Kenneth Branaugh's “Belfast” – already a prize winner at several film festivals – high in Oscar predictions for the year's best picture.

After breaking onto the scene as a Royal Academy Shakespearean wunderkind before eventually becoming the academy director (and a knight of the royal order), Branaugh found bigger audiences when he became a filmmaker, acting and directing projects on increasingly epic scales.

In “Belfast” he comes full circle and brings it all home.

Shot mostly in black and white, it's a warmly remembered recollection of his boyhood, in the mode of Fellini's “Amacord” or Alfonso Cuaron's 2019 Oscar winner “Roma.” It takes place the the turbulent late '60s when the streets outside his family's working-class flat were scenes of violent skirmishes led by Protestant gangs trying to root out the Catholic families in the neighborhood.

The nightly news footage of of street carnage is interspersed with Westerns like “High Noon” on the family TV, which Branaugh's younger self, Buddy (Jude Hill), watches wide-eyed. Despite the lethal danger literally right outside the door, “Belfast's” mood is unexpectedly sunny, thanks to the casting of the youngster. Although he sometimes forgets the advice of his grandpa (Ciarán Hinds), “If you can't be good, be careful,” Buddy is still a great kid. Irrepressibly cheerful, curious, and imaginative, he makes his entrance in the film as a knight fighting imaginary foes with a garbage can lid for a shield.

The film largely observes its topsy-turvy world through Buddy's trusting eyes. He senses strain between his Ma (Caitriona Balfe) and Pa (Jamie Dornan), but doesn't understand the fine points of eviction, collection agencies or horse-racing debts. Pa leaves home for weeks at a time to work as a tradesman on building projects in Britain, going through intense interrogations just to get home once the government installs barbwire barricades and soldiers with weapons at the end of his street.

Perils lurk closer by. Although the family is Protestant, his Pa holds no brief for the bullying firebrands leading the mayhem in the streets, whose threats and intimidation are directed at his wife and older son (Lewis McAskie) as well as himself.

In the face of all this Buddy remains innocently joyful. When she's not at wit's end, his Ma, who happens to be lovely, is a strong, resilient anchor for the boys. Buddy finds more nurturing at his grandparents' – Judy Dench is Granny – where the outdoor toilet doubles as an armchair for hearing great lore and getting advice from Pop. A lot of the advice involves the classmate (Olive Tennant) Buddy's as hopelessly in love with as a preadolescent can get. He excels academically just for the chance to sit next to her in the classroom.

The order of his life, such as it is, isn't upended by Belfast's senseless strife, but by an offer Pa gets to move the family to London. Despite the better circumstances, not to mention the safety, Pa's the only one in the family who wants to go. The meaning of home, roots, and identity are among the many rich themes on Branaugh's mind.

“Belfast” is an exquisite balancing act. The touching performances are enhanced by Haris Zambarloukos' cinematography and songs by – who else? – Van Morrison. The acting – from the unconscious sensuality exuded by Caitriona Balfe to Judi Dench's portrait of an old woman who can barely get up the stairs but hasn't lost her zest – are naturalistic and pitch-perfect.

When the streets are not erupting in exploding motorcars and broken shop windows, Branaugh observes more normal day-to-day activity on the block as choreography. “Belfast's” own musical number, in which Pa takes the role of lead singer, serenading his gorgeous dancing wife with “Everlasting Love” is as romantic as movies get.

For all the fears and unexpected tears along the way, everlasting love is the richest emotion you're left with by the time “Belfast's” final credits roll. All of his family members, flawed as they are, prove worthy of Buddy's unquestioning affection and trust. Kenneth Branaugh has found a way of recapturing his youth, artistically at least, and we're all richer for getting to share the experience.