Docudrama not easy to watch
actors who, for our benefit, all choose to speak in English instead of Norwegian. Surprisingly, the language switch works well, possibly because Scandinavians grow up learning English and tend to be fluent.
For the record, this is what happened on that awful day: A lone, rightwing terrorist named Anders Behring Breivik set off a large truck bomb outside the prime minister’s quarters, killing eight people and injuring more than 200. Then, dressed as a policeman, Breivik drove to Utoya, an island where the children of Labor Party members were at summer camp. He took the boat across and started shooting people — for more than an hour. Five hundred and sixty-four people were on the island at the time. Sixty-nine were killed on the island and more than 100 wounded. It was a bloodbath.
Greengrass devotes considerable time to the two attacks, and though they are the stuff of nightmares and are agonizing to watch, they are also the most gripping scenes in the film. It’s never boring to know that a bomb is about to go off. It’s never boring to witness a calamity. But neither is it any fun, and so the question that gnaws at the edge of consciousness and becomes fullblown later on is “why bother?” Why bother making the film? And why bother watching it?
The clear intention is to warn audiences about the dangers of fascism and the rise of rightwing extremism. Breivik (Anders Danielsen Lie) is a repellent figure who can’t stop smirking and who, once in custody, tells the police he needs medical attention because a fragment from someone’s skull made a tiny cut in one of his fingers. Everything about Breivik is infuriating, and so if you want to get infuriated, see this movie.
In addition to the court case, which dominated headlines in Norway for months, the film follows the recovery of one of the victims, Viljar Hanssen, a 17year-old who came close to dying in the attack. We follow his slow and incomplete recovery from wounds to his arm, legs and head. Jonas Strand Gravli, who plays Viljar, carries these scenes — essentially, the last third of the film — with lots of grit and truth, but the recovery is slow, and so is this section of the movie.
Greengrass gives “22 July” everything he’s got. The filmmaking is vigorous, with a constantly moving and sometimes jittery camera, and the social purpose is worthy and unmistakably sincere. But here’s the thing: If we already know that Nazis are bad, and a continuing and growing presence in Western politics, and if we already know that terrorist attacks are terrifying, do we really have to see this thing?
Can’t we just stipulate that everything that Greengrass is saying is right, and then go see “A Star Is Born” again? Can’t we give ourselves a break?