The same oneiric qualities present in two of Nolan’s other films, Memento and Inception, are at their most raw in Insomnia, as Nolan eschews a simple narrative for one filled with ambiguity, mistrust and unease in an apparently typical American logging town. Pacino, in one of his finest late-career performances, brings an astonishing level of grief and despair to Dormer, a man who is far from the sunshine and warmth of the Golden State. The landscape that hosts Nolan’s moody crime thriller seems to claw at the ankles of the newcomer detectives, luring them into the woods, into the fog, and always into danger. In one quick instinctive motion, Dormer fires at a figure in the mist only to discover that he has in fact shot his partner. One particular episode of his dreaming-wide-awake fugue, captured by Wally Pfister’s icy cinematography, sees Dormer stranded in a fog bank in pursuit of Kay Connell’s ostensive killer. Throughout the film, Dormer struggles to adapt to the constant daylight and drifts in and out of his detective work, hearing noises and seeing apparitions where none exist. Insomnia marks the moment where Nolan’s signature themes – disconnection, isolation, the fragility of the human mind – come together to intoxicating effect. Eckhard and his partner Will Dormer (Al Pacino) are flying in to assist with the homicide investigation of local teenager Kay Connell (Crystal Lowe), and their jet lag is only the tip of the sleep-deprived, hallucinatory iceberg awaiting them. I haven’t seen a building in, like, 20 minutes,” uttered by LAPD detective Hap Eckhard (Martin Donovan), is the film’s short and simple introduction to Nightmute, a town on the edge of the world. The rising monoliths of its lumber mills are the only landmarks for hundreds of miles, and it sits in the shadow of a towering, pine-clad mountain range. The first shot of the film’s setting is glimpsed from a seaplane cruising above a glacial wreck of tundra and ice ravines. As such, it’s only natural that in 2002 Christopher Nolan sought this land of always-daylight for his psychological thriller Insomnia. Sleep is elusive, the world takes on a strange new presence, and evil things are no longer reserved for the night only. At the height of summer, the sun doesn’t dip below the horizon for 60 days straight. If you follow the narrow road to the deep north, beyond the boundary of the Arctic Circle, you’ll eventually come to a place where the days seem to last forever. The film is engrossing from beginning to end, and I'll never understand why Hollywood feels it needs to try to do better - it rarely can.Winter in Alaska can be desperately bleak, and that’s not simply because of the sub-zero temperatures. The acting is understated and viewers are left to understand motivations without explicit explanation. Most of the action takes place in non-descript rooms, suffused with the cold grey light of the arctic sun. It takes place in Norway, and the director resisted the temptation to show us a travelog of cute Norwegian villages. This film is understated in a way that the 2002 Al Pacino remake missed the boat on. As he becomes more and more tired, his life and his desires race out of control, and his need to maintain his facade causes him to make decisions that take him to the edge of catastropy. Stellan Skarsgard gives a very good performance as the detective struggling to keep control of himself and the situation. What is interesting is the detective's inablility to deal with his problems and face life truthfully, metaphorically illustrated by his inability to block out the sunlight and sleep. The detective story isn't important here - the detective has no trouble locating the killer, understanding his motives, or "solving" the crime. An excellent psychological drama about a cooly repressed detective unable to own up to causing the accidental death of his partner, at the same time he is persuing an author suspected of killing his young girlfriend.
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