WRONG TIME WRONG PLACE - MIFF 2013

I normally do not see a lot of documentaries at MIFF, but I still like to catch the odd one or two and after reading the synopsis of “Wrong Time Wrong Place”, I felt compelled to see it.

“Wrong Time Wrong Place” is about the survivors of the Norwegian massacre that took place on July 22^nd 2011, between Oslo and the holiday camp at Utoya.  Seventy-seven innocent lives were taken that day when Anders Breivik went on his unexplained killing spree, but what of the survivors?  Why did they survive and not their friends?  Was it fate, coincidence, or the hand of God that saw them fit to live when so many others died?

Going into “Wrong Time Wrong Place” I was expecting a thorough examination into the whole massacre as well as an attempt to explain the madness that took place on that fateful day.  Sadly this is not what I got, as even the most basic details of the massacre are ignored and not recounted for anyone who may be unfamiliar with them, thus failing to give this documentary context in the most rudimentary sense.  I found myself in the boat of not knowing the full details about the massacre; all I knew was that it took place and that is it, so I personally found “Wrong Time Wrong Place” to be a frustrating experience.

What director John Appel does explore are the topics of fate and coincidence and how these things came together to help these people survive this horrible ideal, as well as looking at tiny moments that seemed insignificant at the time, but ultimately saved some while the others were destined to die.  Appel has been blessed with a number of interview subjects whose stories are all very sad, but without even the basic details of the massacre explained, I again, found these stories hard to contextualize.  What is amazing is just how honest and detailed these recollections from the survivors turned out to be, and how brave they were to revisit these horrible moments and talk about them so soon after they happened for this documentary.  My favourite person interviewed was Ritah, a young woman from Uganda who was actually pregnant at the time of the attack.  She credits her unborn son with giving her the strength to fight to live.  Ritah speaks beautifully and I felt her recounts of what happened were the most poignant and heartfelt.  It is also through her that the film ends on a sense of hope, as we witness Ritah with her now born child; a symbol for hopefully a brighter tomorrow.

The topics of fate and coincidence are truly fascinating in and of themselves, whether you believe in such things or not.  Each interview subject has a story of each that colours their survival, like Natia who travelled to Utoya with her best friend Tanta, only to return alone.  She tells the story about how minutes before the shooting began, she went to the toilet without Tanta; an innocent act that saved her life and doomed her friend.  She then goes on to explain that the reason why Tanta died was due to her inability to swim to get off the island.  The saddest part of the story is that Tanta was Breivik’s final victim as he was arrested seconds after killing the girl.

While all the stories told are in of themselves very sad, at the end of the day “Wrong Place Wrong Time” is just a talking heads piece and is not a great documentary.  It just isn’t very involving and I really wanted more from it.  Personally I found it to be a very flat experience; the film coasts at the same level for the entirety of its (admittedly short) running time.  At the end of the day, I suppose I am criticizing a film for what it is not, rather than what it is, but I was just expecting a film about the 2011 Norwegian massacre to at least look at the crime itself and try and give this senseless act some meaning.  It doesn’t come close to doing that and as such was quite the disappointment.

2.5 Stars.