The Upcoming
  • Cinema & Tv
    • Movie reviews
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Show reviews
  • Music
    • Live music
  • Food & Drinks
    • News & Features
    • Restaurant & bar reviews
    • Interviews & Recipes
  • Theatre
  • Art
  • Travel & Lifestyle
  • Literature
  • Fashion & Beauty
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Competitions
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

London Film Festival 2015

I Am Belfast

London Film Festival 2015: I Am Belfast | Review
13 October 2015
J A Clarke
Avatar
J A Clarke
13 October 2015

Movie and show review

J A Clarke

I Am Belfast

★★★★★

Links

FacebookWebsite

Special event

There’s a lady: her name is Belfast and she wants to tell her story. Festival favourite Mark Cousins writes and directs this dreamlike exploration of Belfast’s past, present and possible future.

Part documentary, part drama and part old-fashioned storytelling, Cousins’ latest film takes a gentle pace through the life of this famous – or infamous – city, with glimpses into the everyday life of its people interspersed with Cousins’ own cinematographic observations. The viewer is encouraged to take Belfast as she is: battered, wise, friendly and grim. Painterly shots are paired with lyrical descriptions that sound like a man in love. Look at the city, he tells the viewer; really look! The trees, the people, the murals, the broken-down monuments, to a greater, more industrious age: no detail escapes the camera’s loving gaze.

The film’s narration unrolls slowly in the anecdotes and observations of the personified city, who appears from time to time onscreen as a pleasant-faced older woman (Helena Bereen) wrapped comfortably in a shawl. Fixed, textured shots take in the to-and-fro of city life, sketching a larger portrait from the many smaller ones, while David Holmes’ score provides a lullaby-like background to cinematographer Christopher Doyle’s poetically prosaic dreamscapes.

The film does, eventually, touch on “The Troubles”, though the verbal dramatisation of some incidents may ring overly-lyrical to those who associate the city with the pedestrian tone of 1990s news reports. Cousins’ touch is delicate and elegiac, with an insider’s insight into the living divisions of the city’s Protestant and Catholic cold war. However, I Am Belfast does unfurl at a speed that can feel ponderous at times. While the poetry and storytelling are effective at drawing the audience into the confidence of Cousins’ personified city, they also begin to wear a little thin through overuse in the last third of the film. Near the end, an interview with two exuberant Belfast natives provides a welcome break from the film’s unhurried reverie.

I Am Belfast is a quiet, understated film which creates poetry from the mundane, and paints a unique, personal picture of hope for the city’s future.

★★★★★

J A Clarke

I Am Belfast does not have a UK release date yet.

For further information about the 59th London Film Festival visit here, and for more of our coverage visit here.

Watch the trailer for I Am Belfast here:

Related ItemsI Am BelfastLFF 2015review

More in Film festivals

Honk for Jesus. Save Your Soul.

★★★★★
Matthew McMillan
Read More

“I think I’m kind of a drug addict for image and sound coming together! I’m always putting images to sound and getting high”: An interview with Hlynur Pálmason, director of Godland

Selina Sondermann
Read More

Watcher

★★★★★
Matthew McMillan
Read More

Resurrection

★★★★★
Matthew McMillan
Read More

Sharp Stick

★★★★★
Matthew McMillan
Read More

Leyla’s Brothers: An interview with Saeed Roustayi

Selina Sondermann
Read More

Plan 75: An interview with director Chie Hayakawa

Selina Sondermann
Read More

Falcon Lake: An interview with director Charlotte Le Bon

Selina Sondermann
Read More

“How to make a genuine portrait of life”: An interview with the stars of Leila’s Brothers

Selina Sondermann
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Movie and show review

J A Clarke

I Am Belfast

★★★★★

Links

FacebookWebsite

Special event

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Coldplay at Wembley Stadium: “A night that will be remembered by 80,000 people for years to come”
    Live music
  • My Old School
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Sprung
    ★★★★★
    other
  • Edinburgh Fringe 2022: Mr Moon at C Aquila
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Two Ukrainian Plays at Finborough Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Cruise at Apollo Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Camden Fringe 2022: The Man Who Wouldn’t Be Murdered at Lion & Unicorn Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • “It’s by going to the intimacy of our own perspective that we can hope to then speak to a more general audience”: Charline Bourgeouis-Tacquet on Anaïs in Love
    Cinema & Tv
  • Trending summer dresses everyone wants to own in a heatwave
    Fashion & Lifestyle
  • Edinburgh Fringe 2022: In PurSUEt at Underbelly, Cowgate
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Cruise at Apollo Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • “It’s by going to the intimacy of our own perspective that we can hope to then speak to a more general audience”: Charline Bourgeouis-Tacquet on Anaïs in Love
    Cinema & Tv
  • Coldplay at Wembley Stadium: “A night that will be remembered by 80,000 people for years to come”
    Live music
  • Where is Anne Frank?
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Anaïs in Love
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why
With the support from:
International driving license

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

London Film Festival 2015: ChemSex | Review
London Film Festival 2015: Desierto | Review