Review #1,408: '22 July' (2018)

British writer and director Paul Greengrass has spent half of his whole career documenting real life tragedies with equal amounts of verve and respect. The likes of Bloody Sunday, United 93 and Captain Phillips were equally difficult to watch and to look away from, paying tribute to those caught up the real-life events, who are likely still living with the traumatic memories, yet delivering an emotional, visceral cinematic experience at the same time. The two styles should contradict each other, but they really don't, and it's what makes Greengrass a special film-maker. But even he couldn't escape the controversy that came with his latest film, 22 July, a re-telling of the 2011 terrorist attack on Norway's Utoya island, an event still fresh in the minds of anybody old enough to remember the news reports. Is the film simply too soon? And does a Brit even have the right to try and make sense of a Norwegian tragedy?

22 July arrives mere months after Erik Poppe's Utoya: July 22, a Norwegian production that placed a fictionalised character at the centre of the massacre as it unfolds in real-time using one long take. Poppe's movie was even more controversial, raising questions about the ethics of applying such cinematic flair to an event that still feels like an open wound to many. Greengrass is more concerned with the aftermath: how Norway reacted as a country and how the actions of Anders Behring Breivik are still felt throughout the world. The massacre itself, which took the lives of 69 people attending a Labour Party youth camp, is mercifully short, but undeniably horrifying. One attendee in particular stands out: the bright, articulate and well-liked Viljar (Jonas Strand Gravli). We first meet him delivering a short speech about the ethnic diversity of his own town, speaking out in favour of everything Breivik hates. At the same time Breivik, played with a haunting steeliness by Anders Danielsen Lie, has posted his online manifesto and is fitting a home-made bomb to a van outside the Prime Minister's office. Whilst on his journey to Utoya, Breivik had already murdered 8 people.

Viljar survives the attack but is left blind in one eye and with bullet fragments lodged dangerously close to his brain. While Breivik is processed through the courts, Viljar provides a much-needed ground-level view. Through Viljar, 22 July also finds its emotional beats, as his physical and emotional recovery builds towards a final confrontation in court, where Breivik is also granted the opportunity to say his piece. The system may have given Breivik some time in the spotlight, Greengrass certainly doesn't, at least not in the way the delusional, self-styled "leader of men" no doubt envisioned. It commends both due process and Norway's refusal to allow events to descend into a circus. As a result, Breivik is systematically broken down and disarmed, and if the film is ultimately about our truly dark times, some satisfaction can be gained by watching a monster stripped of his delusions of grandeur. Greengrass trips up with his decision to shoot the film in accented English, going half in the right direction by casting unknown Norwegian actors but stopping short of full immersion. For such an otherwise authentic document, it's a baffling decision, but 22 July is still brave, powerful film-making that reminds us with genuine concern of what little has changed since that day seven years ago.


Directed by: Paul Greengrass
Starring: Anders Danielsen Lie, Jonas Strand Gravli, Jon Øigarden, Maria Bock, Thorbjørn Harr
Country: Norway/Iceland/USA

Rating: ****

Tom Gillespie