Kenneth Branagh’s newest film, Belfast, is first and foremost a deeply personal film, if not an almost entirely auto-biographical one. Set in the eponymous Irish city in the north during the tumultuous late 60s and early 70s, one might immediately imagine a darker political drama centered directly around the events of the Troubles. Films like Paul Greengrass’s Bloody Sunday or Steve McQueen’s Hunger, set during the same general time period, focus directly on tangible events within the political violence of colonialism at the time, like the Bogside Massacre and the hunger strikers at Long Kesh. This stark history provides these films with the background to craft stories with darker and more incendiary tones. On this note, Branagh’s film makes a significant departure.
