Is it useful or appropriate to make a feature film reconstruction of a terrorist attack? That question inevitably looms, before or after experiencing Norwegian filmmaker Erik Poppe's Utøya 22.July. We are talking about the horrific massacre perpetrated by right-wing extremist Anders Breivik on 22 July 2011. Of the 500 young people who took part in a Norwegian Labour Party summer camp on the island of Utøya, 77 were killed. The film is now competing for the Golden Bear at the Berlinale.
Festival director Dieter Kosslick has somewhat defiantly stated that critics searching diligently for themes in the competition will not find them. Because they are not there. According to him, the films simply reflect the reality around us. Now that's a somewhat bland statement, because if you take a broad view, this is almost always true of films. But in the case of Utøya 22.July, it applies eerily well.
Panic
There is a short intro with real video footage of the introductory bombing in Oslo. But everything else takes place on the island. As the credits report, the characters are fictional. But what we see is based as accurately as possible on interviews with survivors. In filming, Poppe also adheres strictly to their position.
The camera follows 19-year-old Kaja, played very convincingly by Andrea Berntzen. She is there with her sister Emilie. We meet the two as they argue quite a bit, with the result that Kaja decides to party with her friends, while Emilie stays in the tent. Then banging sounds in the distance. Fireworks, someone still thinks. But shock and misunderstanding strike quickly when a bunch of youngsters come running out of the forest in a panic. "Hide," they shout. And a young foreigner says: "It's real! I know what shots sound like!"
Effective choices
From that moment, for exactly 72 minutes, we experience the panic and fear as must have been felt by the hunted youth. Exactly the duration of the attack. The film's strength lies in its simplicity. Poppe has made some clear, effective choices. He places the viewer, as far as is possible with a film, exactly in the position of the youngsters. We constantly hear the shots, but there are no images of Breivik. At most, sometimes in the distance, a vague silhouette among the trees.
We see no more and no less than what those young people there know. They have picked up a few reports about the bomb in Oslo, but otherwise no idea. Someone, in his desperation, thinks it might be a drill. Another thinks of multiple attackers. And someone has seen that it is the police themselves shooting. Yes, where is that rescue for so long? Should they run, or should they not. What is the best way to escape? What do you think about when you see the first dead peers and fear you might be next? Should Kaja go looking for her sister? Should she stay with the badly injured girl she accidentally finds?
Single shot cinema
Any inclination towards sensational images or gory spectacle Poppe has avoided. It is mainly fear and uncertainty. What makes the filming extra poignant is that the entire attack was filmed in one long, 72-minute shot. The camera runs with Kaja, looking where she looks, and nowhere has editing been manipulated. This is the little-used, as logistically infuriatingly difficult 'single shot cinema'. Capturing that whole horror event stretching from the clubhouse, through the forest to the coast in one long take must have been a feat. Not least for the young actors who give a remarkable performance here.
It makes it impossible to conceive of this feature film reconstruction as anything other than an expression of solidarity with those who had to endure it. If it had to be filmed anyway, then so be it. It makes Utøya 22.July one of the few standouts in the hitherto tame Berlinale competition.
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