Written, produced and directed by Kenneth Branagh, “Belfast” isn’t exactly autobiographical but chronicles a story and time that the actor and filmmaker knows well, as unrest involving hostility by Protestants toward Catholics roiled the boy’s close-knit community.
In the press notes Branagh compares the film to director Pedro Almodóvar’s “Pain and Glory” as a fictionalized work based on his early life, which certainly falls under the “Write what you know” category.
In this case, shooting in black and white makes a statement that reinforces the film’s central tension, which is a world as seen in Black and White, with no shades in between.
Hall captures how the two women chafe against the system and its limitations in different ways, and shoots the film with a haunting, almost hypnotic quality.