Kenneth Branagh’s Belfast is less a memoir than a séance a summoning of 1969 Northern Ireland through the wide, wondering eyes of a child. Shot in shimmering monochrome that makes every cobblestone and candy shop glow like a Caravaggio, this semi-autobiographical tale turns personal history into something approaching myth. The Troubles here aren’t documented so much as felt, their violence arriving in sudden bursts like stones through glass, while life stubbornly continues in the cracks between.

Young Jude Hill delivers that rarest of child performances one that feels authentically young, all skinned knees and crooked grins, rather than precocious. His Buddy exists in that magical space between innocence and dawning awareness, where adult conflicts are glimpsed through keyholes and translated through cowboy movies. The supporting cast especially Caitríona Balfe’s fiery, fragile Ma and Judi Dench’s granite-and-honey Granny turn what could be sentimental types into fully realized souls.

Branagh’s direction walks a tightrope between nostalgia and clear-eyed remembrance. Van Morrison’s soundtrack sometimes tugs too hard at the heartstrings, and the present-day color framing device feels unnecessary. But when the film works as in a breathtaking long take of Buddy racing through streets turned suddenly dangerous, his plastic sword still clutched like Excalibur it achieves something remarkable: history not as lecture, but as lived experience.

This isn’t the full, messy truth of The Troubles how could it be, through a child’s eyes? but as a portrait of how ordinary love persists in extraordinary times, Belfast shines.