Glocal Borders in Kenneth Branagh's Belfast (2021)

Abstract

Kenneth Branagh’s semi-autobiographical film Belfast (2021) tells the story of a young boy, Buddy, growing up in Belfast in the sectarian border zones that internally fissured the state of Northern Ireland. This article suggests that the movie’s critical success partly rests on the movie’s glocal approach to Belfast’s history, including its border zones. The film employs a number of aesthetic devices to turn the local experiences of Buddy into a global narrative about childhood, family and border zones. Among these tools are the use of self-referential framing devices, the child’s perspective and elements of nostalgia that link local history to transnational bonds of affection. By using a child's perspective, Belfast transcends the ruptures inherent in Belfast’s zones of division to create connections across cultural, ideological and physical spaces. Situated in a glocal framework, Buddy’s childhood symbolically embodies the experiences of a collective Irish diaspora, one that thinks back to its own or its family’s migrant experiences and turns it into a source of emotional belonging.