(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
From black canvas and time just before the bomb goes off in Oslo 22. July, drone camera takes us over Oslo city. An as yet intact capital full of human confidence that will soon be multiplied as human intestines and government office pieces blend into the ashes of the once-innocent – the innocence that had given us the illusion that the unbearable would not hit our small country. Large-scale terrorist attacks and genocides were happening elsewhere – until then.
Alarmingly current. as Utøya 22. juli has its premiere in Berlin and press release in Norway, there is only a few days ago another American school massacre. The debate on gun laws in the United States is hot. Our history of terror resembles the other countries constantly experiencing: lone wolves against the unsuspecting many – short, brutal and deadly. The timeliness of the film makes me dizzy.
I'm not going to see Utøya 22. juli of desire, but of duty. My inner resistance to seeing it looks physical; the foot fails under me before I'm out the door. I get to the movie theater anyway. Well in the dark, my stomach turns – I have to get out, but stay seated.
Poppe's feature film gives room for empathy and reflection while saving the audience for the worst.
Terror survivors have talked about being so alone about the heinous without being able to share. About living in the aftermath of the unimaginable while everyone else is recounted at a safe arm's length. From the scene a few weeks earlier, the survivors told of their expectations that this film could give others an entrance into the hell they experienced. For their sake I have to endure. Terror fatigue can only be fought with more insight and understanding.
Security Cameras. A figure goes from a white van. The government building is being bombed. Camera shines across a smoky Akersgate full of tangled chaos. The recording is known – the news has been looped. The film not only competes with other dramas on the same theme, it also competes with the crazy stream of updates in the various social media. One I came to talk to was in Tajikistan on July 22, but saw enough news updates enough to fill multiple films.
Poppe and his experienced script team Rajendram Eliassen and Bache-Wiig talk about close cooperation with the survivors. The young people have gone from being victims to becoming film consultants. The film fills a need to share a closer account of the incomprehensible experience.
You will not understand. The movie warns. The words are said straight into the camera, at the beginning of the shoot that lasts for 72 minutes (the entire Utøya section). "Kaja", the fictional main character, speaks to us. Yes, I think, no matter what the movie will show, I will never be able to understand what it was like to be a living shooter, to survive while others around me die.
The film is anchored in Kaja's perspective, in what appears to be a single long take. It is only Kaja that the audience can invest in emotionally – we meet the other characters through her. Two of the supporting characters sparkle with a humanity that draws me to them – I wish there was more of them. "Magnus" (Aleksander Holmen) is liberatingly honest and direct – Utøya is his checkpoint. Kaja's sister, "Emilie" (Elli Rhiannon Müller Osborne), reluctantly goes along and retaliates with demonstrative partying and acting out. Both are refreshingly unconcerned with other people's opinions. On the other hand, it is the main character "Kaja", who shows few mistakes and weaknesses and who seems to live up to other people's expectations.
During the shooting we follow Kaja, who squeezes into the marsh, who stumbles through the tent camp in search of her sister and who keeps a dying girl until she breathes her last. Kaja runs, rumbles and wasps disorientated around the island, and finally she pushes herself up to bare rock walls. Death is getting closer and closer, but I still miss a deeper commitment to what she is going through.
Sound designer Tveito arouses the senses and supports the youth's "freeze-or-fly" response with his revolutionary sound orchestration.
Many reviewers at home and abroad are appalled by the film's atrocities. Some survivors criticize it for not being brutal enough. The film retains intensity and cruel renditions in both cinematic grasp, script and the authenticity of the actors. It gives room for empathy and reflection while saving the audience for the worst – perhaps this is precisely what can make the audience dare to see it.
Inexorable hunter. Like Kaja, Andrea Berntzen has a body language and a talking back that manages to carry the visual and physically demanding marathon the film is. She is in good interaction with cinematographer Otterbeck. The camera's intense pursuit of the protagonist is occasionally experienced through the killer's eyes – a grip from the horror / horror movie. This disturbing grip is an effective dramatization, for the film deliberately avoids showing the perpetrator, except in a flash.
In the soundtrack, however, the perpetrator appears. Sharp shots suddenly overwhelm the summer sounds, and take over with screams of pain and death. Just hearing the killer makes him more terrifying. The grip is innovative and extremely well executed. The renowned sound designer Tveito arouses the senses and supports the youth
"Freeze-or-fly" response with its revolutionary sound orchestration. Piercing bullets accelerate in the face of screams. Broken twigs become the presence of possible death. Rapid breathing or low talk in mobile threatens survival. The shots that come from all directions reinforce the experience of chaos and lack of overview the dense companion camera has already elicited.
The film not only competes with other dramas on the same theme, but also with the crazy stream of updates on social media.
Imprints of fear. The young people on Utøya had world politics as a playground. They were at summer camp by virtue of wanting to be the leaders of the future in a party with a long tradition of governing the country. Safe on an island with a waffle stand, town hall, familiarity and flirting with strangers, the idyll abruptly unraveled. Leading sprouts became defenseless children without orienteringsevne in the face of death. Sommerøya became a life-threatening trap without hiding places.
The picture I am left with after the movie: They still cling to cold rocks, drill their noses into the ground, get no further. The physical threat is over, but the fear of death still suffocates. I sense that many of the survivors have not yet managed to get out of "freeze-or-fly" mode – and that it is urgent to bring them back to life.
The film premieres March 7.
