Long takes and computer screens: "U-22 July" and "Profile"

 In 2012 the Berlinale screened the documentary Side by Side, a timely record of the celluloid vs. digital clash.  A few films this year show us what storytelling can gain with the digital technology.  They provide useful examples to discuss for example digitally-stitched long takes, in the Norwegian U-July 22; and films combining Skype calls, text messages, Facebook and Instagram, on a computer screen, such as Profile.

U-July 22 recreates the attack on a summer camp on an island not far from Oslo, by a heavily armed right wing extremist in 2011; he hunted and shot 69 children, after having exploded a car bomb in the capital as a distraction. The killing spree lasted over an hour, and it is reconstructed here as a single terrifying long take. Prefaced by news footage of the bombing, to set up a minimal context, the narrative strategy is to circumscribe the point of view to a first person with restricted information.  In this case, the 19-year-old Kaja (Andrea Berntzen) as a composite character of survivors, thrown in a maelstrom of extreme emotions and utter confusion. Three of these survivors came to the Berlinale, and participated in the press conference .That must have been a terrifying experience all by itself.

These bravura long takes have almost become standard operating procedure, and a call to cinematographers to climb technical Everests, as in Gravity, Birdman, Victoria.  What makes this one a nerve-wracking breathless 72-minute ride is how the viewer is forced to become the hunted without an exit strategy on a rough confined territory. (It may look an experience similar to The Hunter Games, but by virtue of its realism it is not). The hunter is glimpsed only once, far back, in black armor. Except for a short explanation before the end credits, no other information is given about him.  Context, psychology and interpretation are purposely replaced by a raw experience of terror and survival, in large part conveyed by the soundtrack, where bullet shots become a rhythmic leitmotiv.  Relying on visual strategies familiar to cinéma vérité, the films creates suspense in a classical anticipatory manner: will or will not the hunter find his prey? Directed assuredly by Rick Poppe, with Martin Otterbeck as cinematographer, the film functions much like a VR experience – think Carne y Arena, González Iñárritu’s recent installation at LACMA about the US/Mexican border.  Difficult to watch, but nonetheless mesmerizing, U-July 22 is a film where much can be learned about the marriage of storytelling and camera work.

In the thriller Profile, directed by Kazakh-born action director Timur Bekmambetov (Night Watch, Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter, Ben Hur) the suspense comes from a very different source: the increasingly melodramatic twists of the plot, all played out in the digital world.  Like U-July 22, it is also based on a true story – but with a heavy dose of ornamentation, one has to presume.   The director and two cowriters adapted the book In the Skin of a Jihadist, by Anna Erelle, about her experiences as an undercover journalist tracing how ISIS lured young European girls to their cause.  A British journalist (Valene Kane) creates a fake Facebook profile as a Muslin convert.  What ensues is a cat-and-mouse game when an alarmingly charming  British jihadist of Pakistani roots Bilel (Shazad Latif) starts an online relationship with her from Syria, that is equal part recruitment and courtship, marriage vows and a trip to Syria, derailed in Amsterdam.  Progressively more outlandish, the film is played out in a single computer monitor, without sets or props, or hands typing. (Nice to see that in this cinematic universe, the technology works without a glitch!). Profile creates a mesmerizing experience – breezily edited – of how a user of social media becomes embedded in vast digital networks, without geographical boundaries, exhilarating, in real time, and with tangible consequences.

Ultimately, what flattens Profile two thirds into the film is that the thrill of the chase becomes the driving factor of the story.  The dynamics of online recruiting, the tragic stories, the brutal reality of unhinged Islamists, everything the picture has tantalizingly brought to the forefront, dissolves into a suspenseful question: how will the journalist extricate herself from the danger of a roguish double-faced liar?  The film is confortable working with the conventions of thriller and melodrama, without taking the subject matter further.  It is also a good example of cool entertainment for the millennial generation.  What would Hitchcock have done  - one wonders - with this material in this day and age. It’s always fun to wonder.