Feb. 27, 2022, column in Amarillo Globe-News:
'Belfast' shares human side of Irish conflict between Catholics, Protestants
One way to explain what went on
in Northern Ireland for roughly the last 30 years of the 20th
century is to say “the Troubles” were a conflict between Catholics and
Protestants.
That’s way too simple. Without getting too deep into the history, the main point of contention was political, not religious. Northern Ireland was under the control of the United Kingdom, while the rest of Ireland was independent.
Encyclopedia
Britannica says, “Catholics by and
large identified as Irish and sought the incorporation of Northern Ireland into
the Irish state. The great bulk of Protestants saw themselves as British and
feared that they would lose their culture and privilege if Northern Ireland
were subsumed by the republic.”
Belfast, the largest city in
Northern Ireland, was the center of disputes that erupted into violence in the
late 1960s, and it’s the setting of Kenneth Branagh’s new movie, “Belfast.” You
don’t need to know the history to understand and enjoy this outstanding film;
you just need to see it as if you were 9 years old – like Buddy, the main
character played by Jude Hill.
The plot, set in 1969, is
fiction, but it’s based on the childhood of Branagh, the award-winning Irish
actor who wrote and directed it. And
from the first scene, when Buddy’s play in the street is interrupted by young
Protestant men throwing rocks and setting things on fire, to the last, when we
find out whether he and his family will move to a safer city, the peaceful
street where the family has lived for at least three generations is a place of
turbulence and anxiety.
A cute storyline showing Buddy’s
crush on pretty classmate Catherine (Olivia Tennant) is complicated by the fact
that her family is Catholic. Most of their street is Protestant, but the few
Catholics living there are the reason for the repeated violence by the
Protestant gang. Buddy asks his dad (Jamie Dornan) if the ongoing conflict will
keep him from talking to Catherine. Although in another scene Pa questions some
Catholic beliefs, he tells Buddy, “She and her people are welcome in our house
any day of the week.”
Buddy – and for the most part
his family, who only want to stay out of the social strife and pay their bills
– wonders why people can’t just get along. Their parish pastor isn’t much help
with his fire-and-brimstone preaching, which prompts Buddy to sketch two roads –
one leading to heaven and one to hell – on a piece of paper and ask his older
brother which one they should take.
Their grandmother (Judy Dench) just
confuses things when Buddy asks her about the NASA moon landing and she says
the dark side of the moon is “where Lucifer hangs his shillelagh.”
The closeness of family and the
importance of place outweigh political or spiritual concerns in “Belfast,” and Branagh
doesn’t depict either side in the Irish fighting as the right side. The film’s
visual aspect reflects the gloom of “the Troubles” and occasional moments of
joy. It’s in black and white, but when the family temporarily escapes the
stress – such as watching the 1968 Dick Van Dyke movie, “Chitty Chitty Bang
Bang” – we see glimpses of color.
Caitriona Balfe as Ma and Ciaran
Hinds as the grandfather add to the talented cast of this PG-13 movie. It
doesn’t include much violence, but danger always seems around the corner, and
you worry about the family. As Pa has a standoff with an enemy brandishing a
gun, Branagh shows Gary Cooper in “High Noon” along with Tex Ritter singing, “I
must face a man who hates me.”
One
instance of hope is when, at a graveside, a minister recites I Corinthians
13:12: “For now we see
through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then
shall I know even as also I am known.”
In real life, riots, shootings
and bombings by extremists on both sides resulted in the deaths of police,
soldiers and civilians for years. The Good Friday Agreement in 1998 finally
ended “the Troubles.” Northern Ireland remains a part of the United Kingdom but
is governed primarily by local representatives instead of the British Parliament.
I remember reading news reports about the violence between the two sides. “Belfast” shows us a third side – the human one.
