87 minutes can change a lot, push a country into an abyss.
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On July 22, 2011, Norwegian right-wing extremist Anders Breivik on island of Utøya near Oslo 69 people, 33 injured him. Most of m participated in a holiday camp of youth organization of Social Democratic Workers ‘ Party. The perpetrator arrived at 5pm disguised as a policeman on island. At 18.27 a.m. He was arrested by a ops. The massacre took 87 minutes, during which murderer chased children and young adults and executed. The drama Utøya 22 July of Norwegian filmmaker Erik Poppe also takes 87 minutes.
But is that even possible? To shoot a feature film that portrays dozens of young actors on island of Utøya, how y panic, run away, hide, jump into water and try to escape floating? And how some of m die?
Erik Poppe is one of Norway’s most renowned filmmakers. He has been awarded Norwegian Critics Prize four times – as often as no one before him. He has also been represented twice at Berlinale: 1999 with his debut SCHPAAA and 2017 with King’s Choice – attack on Norway. Before he became a filmmaker, Poppe was a press photographer for a news agency in Republic of Congo and Afghanistan, among ors. Later, after deciding to study film, he focused on question of how to achieve greatest possible emotional impact with a fictional work. His answer, about which he also received his doctorate 2015: by choosing a personal, i.e. highly subjective, narrative perspective.
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In his film Utøya 22 July, which is now in competition of Berlinale, he has implemented se considerations. The effect is enormous. The question is wher Poppe manipulates us with his emotional perspective. The director precedes actual film with a kind of prologue of documentary material: Pictures from surveillance cameras in Oslo and aerial photographs of capital from former afternoon of July 22nd. Before he translated to island, Breivik had detonated a bomb in front of a government building that killed eight people.
After a black aperture with time indication 17.10 o’clock Spectator is n on Utøya again. A young woman speaks directly to camera: “You will never understand”, she says resigned and n asks, “Listen to me!” Of course this sounds like a direct audience address, but 19-year-old Kaja only calls. Her mor is worried about attacks in Oslo. Kaja promises to look for her sister to call her mor back. By end of film, camera is now following Kaja on this quest. Poppe shot his movie as one-take, so in a single long shot.
Kaja is a fictitious figure. What y experienced in film on Utøya, or more precisely: through, has not happened so. And yet everything has been so. Poppe and his two screenwriters have long and intensively not only dealt with existing archival material and files about assassination, but also met survivors and worked closely with m. How else could you have dare to shoot such a movie at all – and later to market it, possibly win prizes with it?
Yes, Poppe manipulates us
And how else could director, his writers, actors and actresses ever know what it actually feels like to have been on Utøya on July 22, 2011? The confusion of not knowing what is actually happening right now. Is that assassin’s shot? Or policeman? Is this an exercise? And why doesn’t police respond to emergency calls? Who was hit? Where to flee?
Kaja is experiencing all this. The young actress Andrea Berntzen has done it in a huge feat to portray horror and flight. She hides at first with ors in group house, later she searches camp for her sister, does not find her, flees alone in forest. There she meets a girl who is badly injured by a shot on her shoulder.
It would be unrealistic not to show death in such a movie. At same time, we are talking about people who have actually died, who have parents, siblings, friends who still mourn after six years. Poppe had to find a solution to this dilemma. Except for one exception, his camera does not show actors who represent dead. Out of respect for victims. There is only this one girl that Kaja encounters and with whom she spends last minutes until it dies in Kaja arms. In arms of a compassionate person.
Yes, Poppe is manipulating us. He does it with best intentions. This is contentious. But it’s also exactly what he wants with film. For an important motivation poppes to turn this film at all was testimony of several survivors that it was so infinitely difficult to talk about what was experienced. At same time, many noticed that memory of people faded to deed. Now survivors would have this film, says a young woman who escaped massacre at Berlinale. “You will never understand. But watch! ” Then you can talk about it.
