Belfast

There's so much I didn't know about Kenneth Branagh, and Belfast, and the Troubles. And so much I still don't know about it all because it's hard for an American to understand without a lot of work. But I know a bit more from Branagh's movie Belfast and a little bit of research.

I now know Branagh was born in 1960 in Belfast, and since the movie is semi-autobiographical, he was at least a bit like the 9-year-old main character, whose Protestant family had lived for generations in a tightly knit mixed-religion neighborhood. (I had assumed he was English, and he did mostly grow up around Reading after 1970.)

While the film is about family dynamics and a child's perceptions of the political cataclysm of that time, the part of the film I found the most fascinating was the look it gave of daily life in a city built for people.

This photo, from Belfast in 1970, could easily have been a visual reference used by production designers for the film. Source

The opening scene is full of people living in the street, both adults and children. There are small shops right nearby that provide what people need. No one is afraid they'll be run over by a vehicle. Throughout the film, everyone walks almost everywhere, except for the use of buses in several scenes to reach a more distant place (the hospital, the airport). The streets are narrow.

Everyone has the security of housing even though they're poor, and though it's not highlighted, it's mentioned that they all live in public housing, which is called council housing in the U.K. And they don't even pay their rent, ducking the rent collector or — as told by the boy's grandfather — extorting the rent back from him once it has been collected. This is not presented as social degeneracy, as it would be in the U.S., especially if the characters were Black.

Anyway. As I watched the movie, I kept thinking of Billy Bragg's song "Northern Industrial Town," which came out on one of his albums in 1996.

It's just a northern industrial town
The front doors of the houses open into the street
There's no room for front gardens
Just a two-up, two-down
In a northern industrial town

And you can see the green hills 'cross the rooftops
And a fresher wind blows past the end of our block
In the evenings the mist comes rolling on down
Into a northern industrial town

And there's only two teams in this town
And you must follow one or the other
Let us win, let them lose
Not the other way round
In a northern industrial town

And the streetlights look pretty and bright
From the tops of the hills that rise dark in the night
If it weren't for the rain, you might never come down
To your northern industrial town

And on payday they tear the place down
With a pint in your hand and a bash 'em out band
Sure they'd dance to the rhythm of the rain falling down
In a northern industrial town

And there's plenty of artists around
Painters steal cars, poets nick guitars
'Cause we're out of the black and we're into the red
So give us this day our daily bread
In a northern industrial town

But it's not Leeds or Manchester
Liverpool, Sheffield nor Glasgow
It's not Newcastle-on-Tyne
It's Belfast
It's just a northern industrial town

Merry Christmas, war is over
In a northern industrial town