In 1961, Stanislaw Rozewicz created the novella film "Birth Certificate" in cooperation with his brother, Taduesz Rozewicz as screenwriter. Such brother tandems are rare in the history of film but aside from family ties, Stanislaw (born in 1924) and Taduesz (born in 1921) were mutually bound by their love for the cinema. They were born and grew up in Radomsk, a small town which had "its madmen and its saints" and most importanly, the "Kinema" cinema, as Stanislaw recalls: for him cinema is "heaven, the whole world, enchantment". Tadeusz says he considers cinema both a charming market stall and a mysterious temple. "All this savage land has always attracted and fascinated me," he says. "I am devoured by cinema and I devour cinema; I'm a cinema eater." But Taduesz Rozewicz, an eminent writer, admits this unique form of cooperation was a problem to him: "It is the presence of the other person not only in the process of writing, but at its very core, which is inserperable for me from absolute solitude." Some scenes the brothers wrote together; others were created by the writer himself, following discussions with the director. But from the perspective of time, it is "Birth Certificate", rather than "Echo" or "The Wicked Gate", that Taduesz describes as his most intimate film. This is understandable. The tradgey from September 1939 in Poland was for the Rozewicz brothers their personal "birth certificate". When working on the film, the director said "This time it is all about shaking off, getting rid of the psychological burden which the war was for all of us. ... Cooperation with my brother was in this case easier, as we share many war memories. We wanted to show to adult viewers a picture of war as seen by a child. ... In reality, it is the adults who created the real world of massacres. Children beheld the horrors coming back to life, exhumed from underneath the ground, overwhelming the earth."
The principle of composition of "Birth Certificate" is not obvious. When watching a novella film, we tend to think in terms of traditional theatre. We expect that a miniature story will finish with a sharp point; the three film novellas in Rozewicz's work lack this feature. We do not know what will be happen to the boy making his alone through the forest towards the end of "On the Road". We do not know whether in "Letter from the Camp", the help offered by the small heroes to a Soviet prisoner will rescue him from the unknown fate of his compatriots. The fate of the Jewish girl from "Drop of Blood" is also unclear. Will she keep her new impersonation as "Marysia Malinowska"? Or will the Nazis make her into a representative of the "Nordic race"? Those questions were asked by the director for a reason. He preceived war as chaos and perdition, and not as linear history that could be reflected in a plot. Although "Birth Certificate" is saturated with moral content, it does not aim to be a morality play. But with the immense pressure of reality, no varient of fate should be excluded. This approached can be compared wth Krzysztof Kieslowski's "Blind Chance" 25 years later, which pictured dramatic choices of a different era.
The film novella "On the Road" has a very sparing plot, but it drew special attention of the reviewers. The ominating overtone of the war films created by the Polish Film School at that time should be kept in mind. Mainly owing to Wajda, those films dealt with romantic heritage. They were permeated with pathos, bitterness, and irony. Rozewicz is an extraordinary artist. When narrating a story about a boy lost in a war zone, carrying some documents from the regiment office as if they were a treasure, the narrator in "On the Road" discovers rough prose where one should find poetry. And suddenly, the irrational touches this rather tame world. The boy, who until that moment resembled a Polish version of the Good Soldier Schweik, sets off, like Don Quixote, for his first and last battle. A critic described it as "an absurd gesture and someone else could surely use it to criticise the Polish style of dying. ... But the Rozewicz brothers do no accuse: they only compose an elegy for the picturesque peasant-soldier, probably the most important veteran of the Polish war of 1939-1945." "Birth Certificate" is not a lofty statement about national imponderabilia. The film reveals a plebeian perspective which Aleksander Jackieqicz once contrasted with those "lyrical lamentations" inherent in the Kordian tradition. However, a historical overview of Rozewicz's work shows that the distinctive style does not signify a fundamental difference in illustrating the Polish September. Just as the memorable scene from Wajda's "Lotna" was in fact an expression of desperation and distress, the same emotions permeate the final scene of "Birth Certificate". These are not ideological concepts, though once described as such and fervently debated, but rather psychological creations. In this specific case, observes Witold Zalewski, it is not about manifesting knightly pride, but about a gesture of a simple man who does not agree to be enslaved.
The novella "Drop of Blood" is, with Aleksander Ford's "Border Street", one of the first narrations of the fate of the Polish Jews during the Nazi occupation. The story about a girl literally looking for her place on earth has a dramatic dimension. Especially in the age of today's journalistic disputes, often manipulative, lacking in empathy and imbued with bad will, Rozewicz's story from the past shocks with its authenticity. The small herione of the story is the only one who survives a German raid on her family home. Physical survial does not, however, mean a return to normality. Her frightened departure from the rubbish dump that was her hideout lead her to a ruined apartment. Her walk around it is painful because still fresh signs of life are mixed with evidence of annihilation. Help is needed, but Mirka does not know anyone in the outside world. Her subsequent attempts express the state of the fugitive's spirits - from hope and faith, moving to doubt, a sense of oppression, and thickening fear, and finally to despair.
At the same time, the Jewish girl's search for refuge resembles the state of Polish society. The appearance of Mirka results in confusion, and later, trouble. This was already signalled by Rozewicz in an exceptional scene from "Letter from the Camp" in which the boy's neighbour, seeing a fugitive Russian soldier, retreats immediately, admitting that "Now, people worry only about themselves." Such embarassing excuses mask fear. During the occupation, no one feels safe. Neither social status not the aegis of a charity organisation protects against repression. We see the potential guardians of Mirka passing her back and forth among themselves. These are friendly hands but they cannot offer strong support. The story takes place on that thin line between solidarity and heroism. Solidarity arises spontaneously, but only some are capable of heroism. Help for the girl does not always result from compassion; sometimes it is based on past relations and personal ties (a neighbour of the doctor takes in the fugitive for a few days because of past friendship). Rozewicz portrays all of this in a subtle way; even the smallest gesture has significance. Take, for example, the conversation with a stranger on the train: short, as if jotted down on the margin, but so full of tension. And earlier, a peculiar examination of Polishness: the "Holy Father" prayer forced on Mirka by the village boys to check that she is not a Jew. Would not rising to the challenge mean a death sentance?
Viewed after many years, "Birth Certificate" discloses yet another quality that is not present in the works of the Polish School, but is prominent in later B-class war films. This is the picture of everyday life during the war and occupation outlined in the three novellas. It harmonises with the logic of speaking about "life after life". Small heroes of Rozewicz suddenly enter the reality of war, with no experience or scale with which to compare it. For them, the present is a natural extension of and at the same time a complete negation of the past. Consider the sleey small-town marketplace, through which armoured columns will shortly pass. Or meet the German motorcyclists, who look like aliens from outer space - a picture taken from an autopsy because this is how Stanislaw and Taduesz perceived the first Germans they ever met. Note the blurred silhouettes of people against a white wall who are being shot - at first they are shocking, but soon they will probably become a part of the grim landscape. In the city centre stands a prisoner camp on a sodden bog ("People perish likes flies; the bodies are transported during the night"); in the street the childern are running after a coal wagon to collect some precious pieces of fuel. There's a bustle around some food (a boy reproaches his younger brother's actions by singing: "The warrant officer's son is begging in front of the church? I'm going to tell mother!"); and the kitchen, which one evening becomes the proscenium of a real drama. And there are the symbols: a bar of chocolate forced upon a boy by a Wehrmacht soldier ("On the Road"); a pair of shoes belonging to Zbyszek's father which the boy spontaneously gives to a Russian fugitive; a priceless slice of bread, ground under the heel of a policeman in the guter ("Letters from the Camp"). As the director put it: "In every film, I communicate my own vision of the world and of the people. Only then the style follows, the defined way of experiencing things." In Birth Certificate, he adds, his approach was driven by the subject: "I attempted to create not only the texture of the document but also to add some poetic element. I know it is risky but as for the merger of documentation and poety, often hidden very deep, if only it manages to make its way onto the screen, it results in what can referred to as 'art'."
After 1945, there were numerous films created in Europe that dealt with war and children, including "Somewhere in Europe" ("Valahol Europaban", 1947 by Geza Radvanyi), "Shoeshine" ("Sciescia", 1946 by Vittorio de Sica), and "Childhood of Ivan" ("Iwanowo dietstwo" by Andriej Tarkowski). Yet there were fewer than one would expect. Pursuing a subject so imbued with sentimentalism requires stylistic disipline and a special ability to manage child actors. The author of "Birth Certificate" mastered both - and it was not by chance. Stanislaw Rozewicz was always the beneficent spirit of the film milieu; he could unite people around a common goal. He emanated peace and sensitivity, which flowed to his co-workers and pupils. A film, being a group work, necessitates some form of empathy - tuning in with others.
In a biographical documentary about Stanislaw Rozewicz entitled "Walking, Meeting" (1999 by Antoni Krauze), there is a beautiful scene when the director, after a few decades, meets Beata Barszczewska, who plays Mireczka in the novella "Drops of Blood". The woman falls into the arms of the elderly man. They are both moved. He wonders how many years have passed. She answers: "A few years. Not too many." And Rozewicz, with his characteristic smile says: "It is true. We spent this entire time together."
这部电影，个人觉得还是很文艺很文艺的。
饰演小男孩的裘德修与饰演父亲的杰米多南两个人的对手戏拍的异常感人，黑白影像反而显得更加隽永，非常讲究的美术和摄影，配乐也恰到好处。不抱任何期望，却发现更多的感动和惊喜。
您这童年往事着实也没啥可值得自溺其中的，更没必要替广大游子吟出个悲秋。《罗马》倒过来是爱，贝尔法斯特倒过来应该是大写的FALSE吧。毫无旧日温度的干净布景上，演员们步履匆匆，穿过的不是岁月洪流，而是急着去拿盒饭。
3星半，叙事结构有模仿《罗马》的痕迹，都是导演对故土情怀的私人记忆，也讨巧的加了BGM来营造氛围，只是政治背景的设立显得有些刻意，小男孩很有灵气，两位老戏骨演技很稳。
实在是没有什么意思，希望不要再搞这种电影了。
无论她是什么宗教，只要她正直与善良，你就可以和她在一起。
和爱尔兰出身的英国朋友一起去看的，故事的情绪很私人，我完全体会不到，顺便问了朋友许多爱尔兰历史。
看完感觉听辨爱尔兰口音的能力变强了。影片由多组日常生活片段构成，又不乏对北爱尔兰新教与天主教冲突的历史背景勾画，暴力与混乱被孩童的视角柔和，依赖门窗街巷自然形成的框架进行构图，体现对立与和解的关系。互文性作为点缀，将发生在他处的文化和故事穿插其中，比如电影中出现的几部电影、奶奶幻想中的香格里拉（还提到了《消失的地平线》）、小男孩看的阿加莎克里斯蒂等。有几处很动人的瞬间，最喜欢的是母亲气急败坏地拉着儿子把趁乱抢来的洗衣粉（？）送回商店，却恰巧被劫为人质的桥段，每一个转折都很精准。
致留下的，致远游的，致迷失的，致敬回不去的
3.5
实在是没有什么意思，希望不要再搞这种电影了。
居然有人拿这部片子和罗马比，完全是两个地域和冲突背景的东西，而且此片的质感不强，做成黑白格调没什么意义。贝尔法斯特把那种对立表现地很弱，甚至没有表现对立面，主要刻画的是更让人不安的内部矛盾。因为各种原因背井离乡的故事很多，但贝尔法斯特并不出色。
3.5 北爱尔兰降调版罗马/北爱人的梦想是去全世界开酒吧！（x
少了份暗流涌动，也没有直接来自当时社会问题在生活上的影响
{★★☆} 这不是个轻松的决定：我相信Kenneth Branagh童年的图像，也相信他在镜头后忠于这份图像。但看完后数日，我脑内却难以回忆起几个这部致敬Branagh所成长街区的电影里，在那条街区上生活的被挤压、坚守或放弃的人们。就像孩子模糊的念想，贝尔法斯特变成了一个抽象的概念。有地标、有伤痕、有欢笑，却没有一个让他不舍离去的理由。
5.女主真无语😑，哭哭哭，最烦了，再好看整天又哭又闹都烦得很，父母商量事情就在孩子面前，要给孩子听，就叫醒了一起说清楚，不给孩子听就tm滚远点说，夫妻吵架也在孩子面前吵，什么玩意父母，虽然男主女主都互爱，对孩子也挺好，但是也有不完美的地方
结尾Judi Dench特写镜头的短短三句台词 堪称演技大赏 也是全片高光时刻
Kenneth Branagh的童年，写给故乡Belfast的一封情书。影像和叙事会让我想到《罗马》，都是怀念的故事啊！
一星半；毫无才气的作品，通篇只看到对《罗马》的拙劣模仿和各种MV串烧，细节浮皮潦草，人物形象扁平，导演没有能力交待清楚贝尔法斯特的时代背景，只能用老电影片段、新闻播报将自己破碎的童年记忆和时代信息塞给观众，既笨拙又浅薄。电影转场和故事推进基本靠播放歌曲MV的形式，也充分暴露了导演对电影语言把握上的无知
给五星有点过了，整体显得匠气了些，但无疑是个可爱又真诚的片子。朱迪·丹奇演得实在太好。乡愁真的是太容易击中人了。
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