Northern Ireland in the 1980's; a Catholic teenager finds himself attracted to a Protestant girl, while at the same time subject to the same forces of violence and conflict as others in the divided city of Belfast.
Let's put Bono to the side for one minute; true it is hard to do that generally, but let us look at this short film without the filter of it being a music video for some U2 songs from their new album (if you haven't heard it, check your iPhone). Viewed as a short film it must be said that it is very well made in terms of capturing a sense of time and place, with generally good production values and mostly a sense of scale that this place exists outside of the frame of the camera lens (mostly). So from a technical bit of film-making point of view, it is hard to fault those involved; however from the point of view of this being a 13 minute film, there is a lot to be desired.
In terms of narrative what we have is the Troubles boiled down to a very simple and truncated narrative, into which a Romeo/Juliette situation is forced. Perhaps this could have worked if it had just been a short film, although personally I doubt that the extent of the simplicity could have been effectively countered by a few more dialogue scenes. In this way it is almost better that the film is a music video, because it covers for the fact that it is incredibly broadly and simply written piece; it also means that the style and rather superficial nature of it are more understandable. It is ironic that I came to this, because personally I was braced to hate it because it was a music video from U2 – whereas in the end that may have covered up for a lot of the film's weaknesses.
Shame, because the use of amateurs, combined with the high standard of the actual production deserved better to be a so-so music video for U2.
