Sometimes, it’s worth imagining there is a Hell knowing that whatever happens to me, there will be a full torture suite awaiting Anders Behring Breivik when he gets there. On 22 July, 2011 in Norway, Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 people, most of them under 20 years old. In this film about the day in question, Paul Greengrass recounts the events in systematic fashion and then follows the lives of Breivik and surviving teen Viljar Hanssen.
This was a political execution. Breivik (Anders Danielsen Lie) began with a bombing of Regjeringskvartalet, home to the offices of the Norwegian Prime Minister. Two hours to the west on the small retreat island of Utøya, Norway’s Labour Party was hosting a youth summer camp. After bombing the Prime Minister’s building, Breivik drove all the way to the dock nearest the island, took the ferry to Utøya, and while dressed as a police officer, killed over 60 teens. His shouts of “traitors” and “Marxists” were often drowned out by his weapon. On the scale of really messed up things a person can do, accusing a child of Marxism and subsequently using that as a reason to execute them is right up there with separating infants from parents in immigrant detention camps or hustling an attempted rapist onto the Supreme Court just to abuse a temporary political advantage.
During the attack, Viljar (Jonas Strand Gravli), his brother, and several other teens hid on a cliff face, invisible from the perspective of the camp itself. When Breivik discovered their hide-out, the teens were forced to leap off the cliff face and run for it. Viljar Hanssen was shot five times.
Now, I’m sure most people in the world will have no idea what to do when some neo-Nazi jackass gets a high-powered rifle and decides to get his jollies making the world as bad a place as he imagines it should be. But the fact that this happened in Norway means it really could happen anywhere. Your country may not know how to handle such an incident, so as a veteran of many a national school shooting, let me take your through the steps towards recovery:
- First, we all stare horrified at our TVs for a few hours.
- Next, all the politicians offer “thoughts and prayers.” This is just a formality and their way of saying, “I have no idea what to do here; I’m in the pocket of the NRA.”
- Then, all the right-wing talk shows immediately announce, “this isn’t the time to talk about gun control” and accuse mourners of politicizing the issue. Immediately after issuing said statement, some right-wing toad will find an intangible or flat-out fabricated piece of evidence tying the shooter to the left-wing. Then the right-wing talk shows will insist violence is a consistent problem of the left-wing.
- After hours of watching, essentially, nothing, and learning essentially nothing, most people are tired and numb and turn their TVs off.
- At this point, MAGA idiots all storm their local gun sellers assuming (Hillary? Obama? George Soros? Twinkie the Kid?) is coming to take their guns away, so they “stock up,” collecting their 35th-43rd personal firearms. Gun sales soar.
- Eventually, somebody reasonable makes a public statement about gun control; that voice is immediately stuffed in a burlap bag and drowned in a river by a lovely person who has come to the logical, unbiased, and completely fact-based conclusion, “the [protestors/mourners/voices of sorrow] are being paid.”
- Over the next day, sad people leave condolences and ask, “why?” Callous assholes mock them with the tired and incorrect mantra, “it’s the price of freedom.”
- The Onion re-publishes their classic ‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens
- Two days later, an FBI profile of the killer comes out. Inevitably turns out he was a big fan of extreme right-wing politics and had ridiculously easy access to weaponry. The national conversation mysteriously switches to mental illness.
- Three to seven days following, the NRA itself comes out of hiding and makes a statement. This statement will likely be the worst thing you’ve ever heard were Donald Trump not your President.
- Over the next months, the Right re-imagines anew their fear that freedom of gun ownership will cease as we know it and, consequently, the NRA forces legislation that makes it even easier to own the kind of weapon that destroyed so many, many lives with ease … and, hence, the pattern repeats itself again and again and again.
You may think I’m joking or super cynical, but that’s exactly what happens every.single.time the United States has to bear yet another school attack.
As for 22 July, I have enjoyed many Paul Greengrass films in the past. I thought this one might strike the same nerve as his brilliant United 93. Greengrass is fantastic at the matter-of-fact and mechanical recreation of terror; it doesn’t quite work here. The problem isn’t that attack was mis-represented. It’s that the attack was one
-sided, brief, and accomplished by one awful human being. It ended well before the 30 minute mark and then there were two full hours in which this slimy, hateful monster got to explore his slimy, hateful thoughts.
22 July is the kind of film that challenges your beliefs. I’m a pacifist; I don’t believe in inflicting pain. I understand the need for war, but I don’t think we should ever choose it. And I certainly don’t believe in taking human life for any reason, but geeeeez, there is something to be said for the assholes who shoot up a school and then take their own lives – at least we never have to indulge their personal philosophies again. I wouldn’t confuse 22 July for neo-Nazi propaganda, but DAMN, the film sure let Breivik talk at smarmy length about how Norway had let down its people through immigration policies. And if that weren’t bad enough, then the film explored a character witness, the state head of the Nazi chapter.
The concurrent biography of Viljar piecing his life back together with one eye, one arm, and an exaggerated limp was a tad more compelling, but even then, the telling seemed fairly one-dimensional. Turning the worst attack on Norway since WWII into a Lifetime movie doesn’t seem like the best use of two hours. I wish I had a better review of this film; I was really looking forward to seeing it.
In Oslo, terror ruled the day
Something Yanks seem to think is OK
When it comes to teen shooting
There’s little disputing
The rest of the world says, “No(r) way!”
Rated R, 143 Minutes
Director: Paul Greengrass
Writer: Paul Greengrass
Genre: Our screwed present
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Norwegians in search of closure [spoiler: you may not get what you’re hoping for]
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Pollyannas
