I saw this film at TIFF and it was my first film of the 2018 festival. There may be spoilers after the next paragraph.
The film details the horrific attacks in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik. The acting is uniformly excellent. The movie goes along at a good pace. Very intense at the beginning with the explosion and then the attack on the island.
SPOILERS
Breivik acts very cleverly in getting onto the island where the high school youth leadership program is happening by pretending to be a police officer. He also persuades the program director to call all the youth together so that he can brief them. This feels a little contrived but real enough that someone could be tricked in this way. The uncertainty of not knowing what is going on back in Oslo other than the fact that a bomb went off near the PM's office would make it plausible.
The fact that the security director becomes suspicious is also plausible and seemed very real and the starting point for the murders was shocking but expected.
When the students start running and trying to find a place to hide made the island feel tiny and claustrophobic. The action was very realistic but not overdone. The calculated manner that Breivik followed his victims and murdered them was again very shocking.
The second act with the initial arrest and pre-trial action showed Breivik to have carefully and cleverly thought out his actions from beginning to end. The explosions, shootings, surrender, his manifesto, choice of lawyer all seemed well planned. I do not know if Breivik was as intelligent, cool and collected as portrayed in the film but he was consistent in his actions throughout the film.
The reactions of the survivors, parents and friends seemed real too. I won't say more about this as I do not want to give the whole film away.
I really enjoyed this film and do not understand why the ratings by the public are so low. I may read some of the other reviews to see. It may have been the violence, the flashbacks and the coldly calculated actions by Breivik were hard to watch for may people but the violence is a bit less than many films like Saving Private Ryan. I hope this film does well at the box office and that people will think about some of the messages that the far right is promoting right now.
The film details the horrific attacks in Norway by Anders Behring Breivik. The acting is uniformly excellent. The movie goes along at a good pace. Very intense at the beginning with the explosion and then the attack on the island.
SPOILERS
Breivik acts very cleverly in getting onto the island where the high school youth leadership program is happening by pretending to be a police officer. He also persuades the program director to call all the youth together so that he can brief them. This feels a little contrived but real enough that someone could be tricked in this way. The uncertainty of not knowing what is going on back in Oslo other than the fact that a bomb went off near the PM's office would make it plausible.
The fact that the security director becomes suspicious is also plausible and seemed very real and the starting point for the murders was shocking but expected.
When the students start running and trying to find a place to hide made the island feel tiny and claustrophobic. The action was very realistic but not overdone. The calculated manner that Breivik followed his victims and murdered them was again very shocking.
The second act with the initial arrest and pre-trial action showed Breivik to have carefully and cleverly thought out his actions from beginning to end. The explosions, shootings, surrender, his manifesto, choice of lawyer all seemed well planned. I do not know if Breivik was as intelligent, cool and collected as portrayed in the film but he was consistent in his actions throughout the film.
The reactions of the survivors, parents and friends seemed real too. I won't say more about this as I do not want to give the whole film away.
I really enjoyed this film and do not understand why the ratings by the public are so low. I may read some of the other reviews to see. It may have been the violence, the flashbacks and the coldly calculated actions by Breivik were hard to watch for may people but the violence is a bit less than many films like Saving Private Ryan. I hope this film does well at the box office and that people will think about some of the messages that the far right is promoting right now.