On July 22, 2011, a extremist detonated a car bomb in Oslo, and then launched a large-scale shooting at a youth leader training camp, killing 77 people. This tragedy shocked the world. The film "22 July" tells the story of such a horrific terrorist attack. The film was directed and filmed by the famous director Paul Greengrass. Prior to this, Paul Greengrass had produced many classic film works, including "The Captain Philip". For the director, "22 July" is a very realistic style film with a real event background as the basis, so the power and meaning behind the film is more distinctive.

picture

The film adopts a multi-line narrative technique. And the psychological clues of the terrorists and the perpetrators constitute one of the lines that promote the story. The confrontation and healing process of the victims and their families form another important clue to the inner feelings of the story. The two clues together to show the dark side of the cold, ruthless and paranoid from the perspective of the perpetrator. Through contrast, it brings out the pain and traumatic sequelae of the victim’s inner heart.

picture

For the director, the emotions of the victim's family are only a microcosm of a country's scars. The story reflects the wounds and pains of terrorism in the whole country with specific subtle people and things. The two main clues are the switching of montage techniques. In the comparison, the emotions of the whole film are swept away between shock and sympathy. The strong human contrast creates a huge drama tension, giving the real audience an immersive experience and shock.

picture
Compared to documentary filming, director Paul Greengrass uses a combination of drama and realism to bring to his limits the hand-held photography and fast editing techniques that he has always been good at. The whole picture is calm, restrained and suppressed. The relationship between characters and stories is more real and stereoscopic in the state of lens shaking. Therefore, when the disaster occurs and the moment comes, the audience can be quickly brought into the pre-set atmosphere of the director. Coupled with the switching of the lens angle of view and the quick editing of the screen, the bloody scene of the shooting is chilling.

picture

In the whole film, the director did not choose to hide and evade the slightest. Instead, he used the lens to show the process of violence in front of the audience nakedly, calm and cold. Behind the cold and hurt, it was really worthy of being the reality of human thinking. As a community of human interests, how to correctly treat extreme people and concepts, maintain a balance in processing, and minimize the harm suffered by the people. The restraint and reflection that the director reveals behind the reality story is the ultimate problem that the film needs to explore. At the end of the film, the horrible perpetrators were sanctioned by the law, but the eternal pain still remains in the inner heart of the country and the victims. Therefore, this is a war that has not won or lost after all, in the face of extermination of humanity. There are only tears, and no winners.

My Score is 8.9

---

Movie URL: https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/474354-22-july?language=en-US
Critic: AAA