Breivik's terrorist attacks: two films made by different filmmakers

Hollywood's obsession with doing films in 'two's' may be a positive thing for the film industry, as demonstrated by the two 2018 films based around the Utoya terrorist attacks

'Utoya - July 22' and '22 July' (Modern Films/Netflix)

by Jack Linsdell

Hollywood has recently adopted a reputation - consciously or not - in releasing two films based on the same topic or source material within a year of each other. Many have criticised this new trend, accusing studio's of 'copying' each other and presuming that audiences are rolling their eyes due to being overloaded with the same content, but in different forms, so to speak. And, this trend continues with two films, both released in 2018, depicting the 2011 Utoya terrorist attacks. These are Paul Greengrass's '22 July' (read my review in the previous post) and Erik Poppe's 'Utoya - July 22'.

This new trend in Hollywood can be seen in numerous examples. In 2016/17 we had Lone Scherfig's 'Their Finest' which heavily explored the 'retreat' of Dunkirk through the creation of a propaganda film and then a few months later, Christopher Nolan's 'Dunkirk' about the actual events themselves. In 2017, we had Fox Searchlight's 'Goodbye Christopher Robin' exploring the life of A.A Milne and then just this year Disney's 'Christopher Robin' directed by Marc Forster. My point is that whether coincidence or not, Hollywood likes to do everything in "two's". And, whilst many look upon this negatively, I think it can actually be beneficial to consumers.

Normally, Hollywood will release a lower-budget version/take on the source material or topic (be it Winnie the Pooh, Dunkirk retreat or Breivik's terrorism acts) first, normally be a lesser-known filmmaker (Simon Curtis, Lone Scherfig or Erik Poppe), and as a result this tends to be the smaller grossing film out of the two. Then, Hollywood follows this up with a higher-budget second film, within a year later, by a more established/widely know/critically successful filmmaker (Marc Forster, Christopher Nolan or Paul Greengrass). And, there is nothing wrong with this because the two films are, almost every time, produced completely differently and focus on a unique angle of the source material/topic than its predecessor/successor. 

Greengrass's 'July 22' covers a wide canvas of the fateful events, with the actual terrorist acts making up only a small part of the film and the majority of it being the aftermath as told through several characters. In contrast, Poppe's 'Utoya - July 22' (damn these films having similar titles!) is a continuous depiction of the island massacre itself, told through one seemingly long-take lasting the 90 minutes of the films runtime as told through real time of the event (apparently). This gives audiences two completely different outlooks on the events, one focussing on the details of the massacre, the other on the human cost and wider political impacts of such a monstrosity. Also worth noting is that Greengrass's flick is told in English (although it is made with a completely Norwegian cast and crew) as it is the more American/British production of the two, whilst Poppe's film is done in the countries native language. Again, this makes the two films different as one feels more universal whilst the other is grounded in (more) authenticity. Lastly, the other main difference between the two is that '22 July' has built Breivik's character to become a backbone to the film, allowing the audience to see him and here his views - he is constantly depicted throughout the 144-minute runtime. Whereas, the other has no physical or aural depiction of Breivik with the director wanting to depict him as a far-off threat. Once again, both approaches give audiences different viewpoints of the same story and instead of being viewed as "one against the other", should be taken together to tell a richer depiction of such a tragedy.

Both directors (one giving the British/western viewpoint and the other more Norwegian) have admittedly stated how they believe the films should co-exist together. Greengrass has commented that the two films, along with the numerous books, documentaries and TV series, are societies ways to "make sense of our world" and that multiple interpretations are part of a "healthy process of exploration". Poppe conforms, stating that he hopes both help "present a wider picture of what happened" although he claims his film was well into production when he heard about the Bourne filmmaker's version. And, I agree. Although I haven't seen 'Utoya - July 22' yet, it sounds as if Hollywood has once again given us two very different films but based around the same topic and within the same year. 

But, I urge audiences not to frown upon this as a bad thing, but to embrace it instead, as giving/shaping public opinion to be more accurate is a positive outcome of having two films about similar things because they are seeing different perspectives to the same topic (as teachers always used to instil in my class, "seeing both sides of the argument"). And, these films may be targeted at different audiences (I doubt many kids saw 'Goodbye Christopher Robin despite it being PG-rated for example) which creates a need for a second film to appeal, more specifically to a different demographic. As the old bible story goes, everything came by two, by two - hoorah. Except, maybe both ships can float on the water and co-exist in each others company...