Utøya - July 22

Another gloomy film in a row showing how the feeling of safety is just an illusion. The main role, in Utøya, is authenticity. I can imagine that for this film, a lot of viewers will claim that form prevails over contents. It’s definitely not how I see it, though, even if I understand not everyone will have Utøya: July 22 in their heart, since it is a very demanding film to watch. The creators deserve great recognition, especially for filming the story in a relatively challenging environment and with unpredictable child actors, all in just one shot! Impressive, very unpleasant and emotionally disturbing. [KVIFF 2018] (04/07/2018)

I think that the creators chose a truly ideal form for shooting a film about the massacre on the island of Utøya. Besides, I like movies that use long shots and I admire the effort of everyone who shoots a film in one take. It's hard to criticize this film. It's probably good that it was made, and that it was shot the way it was. I'm glad that the creators chose an original way to depict the real event and didn't shoot some classic biopic about Breivik, or something similar. There have been more than enough films about mass murderers and other lunatics, and it's better to focus on the other side of the barricade - on the people affected by these actions. For all these reasons, I would give a thumbs up to the creators, so why do I give the film 2 stars? It just didn't touch my heart and I didn't immerse myself in 72 minutes of chaos and despair - which I find a huge problem. I'm definitely not a viewer who needs constant action to enjoy a film, but some scenes here drag so unbelievably long that I was mostly thinking elsewhere and not with the young students fighting for survival. The film started great, and when the shooting started on the island, I was really frozen. The first few minutes are therefore very strong and impressive. However, the film lost me soon in a perhaps 10-minute scene where several children, along with the main heroine, hide behind a tree and try to figure out what's happening. From then on, it started to extremely bore me, I couldn't convincingly engage in their feelings. Although I am usually quite empathetic, for mysterious reasons, it simply didn't affect me. Not even the long scene with the dying girl noticeably affected me. The most interesting part to me were the last minutes with the culmination of the main character's story - but when I think about it, I didn't really get much out of it, I just didn't expect much in that moment. Utøya, 22nd of July is a rather respectable work, but I am unable to properly appreciate it. I will have to think about it a bit more - I would like to give it at least 3 stars, but something is holding me back. I don't know... I'm a bit hesitant about it. BTW: The best reconstruction of a mass murderer attack still remains the surgically precise and shockingly cold Polytechnique by Denis Villeneuve. (04/07/2018)

At first, the style of camerawork was really annoying, but then I realized it added to the bleak atmosphere the creators managed to achieve. It was obvious what the story would be about and how it would end, but I really liked the execution. The teenagers running around the woods in panic, looking for a place to hide with the sound of shooting in the background created decent suspense and I enjoyed the film a lot. (31/10/2018)

A thorough lesson in cheap narrative manipulation. I believe that an audience of a highly sensitive nature might be impressed, and I can’t deny at least the strong depiction of those seemingly endless 72 minutes (though that’s probably because the concept of the film is utterly boring and several passages are endless, especially for the viewer). A strong and heavy topic transformed into flat narration that lacks arguments, which only aims to exhaust the viewer without stimulating any interpretation or curiosity. To a great extent, this is thanks to the properly authentic and chilling format, but it’s mostly tedious, shallow and uninteresting, which for a premise like this it’s very bad. Paul Greengrass’s 22 July is far more intense because it doesn’t rely only on effect and it’s not afraid to place the whole event, including the suffering of the innocent victims (for which I can't find enough words of sympathy) in a much more urgent and provocative argumentative context (and no, the film cannot be defended with the argument that it should only be a raw depiction of the events on the island, because such depiction should communicate with the viewer instead of having them yawn). 50% (22/04/2020)

Overrated to the point of woe and a completely unrewarding and unnecessary film that only feeds Brevik's infamy in the media. The event that took place on 22 July 2011 on the island of Utøya in Norway was horrific, resulting in the death of 77 young students, but unfortunately the film falls far short of representing the horror that took place in reality. I had a big problem with the fact that we see absolutely nothing in the film only hear it, so my experience would be quite similar if I was blind. The film only focuses on one girl who runs, screams, hides in among the threes or under a rock looking for her sister for the entire film, while Breivik is somewhere in sight shooting at the students, but all you hear is gunshots, screaming and running. There is only one dead body, one wound and absolutely no blood in the film, not even Breivik himself is shown, and I take that as a huge screw-up since they mention the word 'massacre' everywhere. It's filmed quite authentically and in one take, but so what if nothing happens for the whole film. I hope Paul Greengrass makes a real massacre in the American remake next year, with steamy psychological terror and a maniacal Breivik to showcase the real horror that took place back then on screen. If only they had at least shown pictures of the deceased at the end so I could take it as a memorial, but I didn't get to see that either. This has no balls, no juice, no drive, no emotion. Bleh. 30% (26/09/2018)