[imagesource:here]

Monochromatic dramas seem to be all the rage right now.

Well, at least to The Guardian, who has praised yet another black and white film with a rare five-star rating.

This time it is BELFAST, an autobiographical movie about the Belfast of director Kenneth Branagh’s childhood.

The film is set in late 1960s Northern Ireland, and is a personal and joyful story about the power of memory, with Buddy, a young boy on the cusp of adolescence, at the centre.

Buddy’s life is filled with familial love, childhood hijinks, and a blossoming romance.

Yet, with his beloved hometown caught up in increasing turmoil, his family faces a momentous choice: hope the conflict will pass or leave everything they know behind for a new life.

The review notes that it is “spryly written, beautifully acted, and shot in a lustrous monochrome”, which may sometimes make it feel “sentimental or that it does not sufficiently conform to the template of political anger and despair considered appropriate for dramas about Northern Ireland and the Troubles”.

But the little bit of sweetness, the “emotional generosity and wit ” allows the film to get to grips with an underrated problem of the time:

When, and if, to pack up and leave Belfast? Is it an understandable matter of survival or an abandonment of your beloved home town to the extremists?

Here’s the trailer:

In BELFAST, there are a few “horribly unglamorous, un-cinematic” moments as if they’ve been plucked straight out of real life.

But it is apparently in these mundane moments, when nothing specifically tragic or Troubles-related is happening, that the film is at its fullest and richest:

It’s not quite right to say that there’s a streak of innocence in the nightmare of this film, but certainly a streak of normality and even banality, which assumes its own surreal tone.

Love letters to the past are always addressed to an illusion, yet this is such a seductive piece of myth-making from Branagh.

The acclaimed ensemble cast includes Jamie Dornan, Caitríona Balfe, Judi Dench, and little Jude Hill as Buddy.

BELFAST will be released on November 12 in the US, and next year on February 25 in the UK.

[source:theguardian]