Watch out, spoilers!
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Kenneth Bran’s new film Belfast, 2021, he calls his most personal film, and that’s not surprising, as he’s largely autobiographical. The main character of the film is a nine-year-old boy Buddy (Jude Hill) through whose eyes we see the whole story associated with his own growing up against the background of the famous events in Belfast, which took place in the late 60s. He grew up in a family of Protestants, not particularly zealous, but they lived on the street, on one side of which there were Protestants and on the other Catholics, lived quite peacefully, so when these riots began, they built fences and set up their own access system to try to keep at least some calm on their street, alternately on duty. The boy's father worked as a carpenter in England, visiting the family every two weeks, raising children was engaged in mother. Nearby lived the parents of her husband, with whom they also maintained close relations. When his father came, local Protestant activists demanded that he take their side, threatening the safety of his loved ones, but he invariably refused and eventually began to persuade the family to move, he would generally gladly go to Australia or Canada, but they did not have the money to do so, so stopped in England, especially since he was offered a normal job, even with housing. Protesters in Belfast have already been approaching the children, trying to draw them into their activities. At first his wife was strongly opposed to leaving, she was afraid that in England they would become outcasts and be ridiculed, as well as Buddy, who did not want to part with his friends and especially with his girlfriend (who, by the way, was Catholic), the eldest son was older, he already understood something, eventually after another outbreak of protests, the decision was made, and they leave.
The film is well shot, Brana still makes progress in the directorial field, the film is black and white except for shots where they watch movies in movies, shots from films are colored. The cast is also successful, there is a lot of music in the film, there are songs by Irish composer Van Morrison. Now we often talk about the enmity of Christians with Muslims, but here in the foreseeable historical past there were such hostile skirmishes between different Christian denominations, now they keep quiet about it, people quickly forget everything. Personally, this does not fit into my head at all, but people have been at odds for centuries, just give them a reason.