In practically no way does Paul Greengrass‘ forensic recreation of terrorist Anders Breivik‘s 2011 massacre on Utøya island and its aftermath, “22 July” resemble its Venice competition stablemate, “First Man.” But the space-storm-in-a-teacup debate that flared up briefly over the absence of a flag-planting scene in Damien Chazelle‘s film does have a strange, inverse parallel in one of the key choices that Greengrass makes: if the arguments over “First Man” prompt us to question the degree to which any nation “owns” the achievements of its past and the manner in which they are portrayed, the presentation of “22 July” in Norwegian-accented English forces us to ask how much a nation owns its tragedies.Continue reading Paul Greengrass’ ’22 July’ Is Overloaded, But Viscerally Assaultive [Venice Review] at The Playlist.
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