Erik Skjoldbjærg’s Insomnia (1998) is quite a remarkable achievement. Despite being its director’s first film, it received high marks from critics as well as selection for the Critics’ Week at the Cannes Film Festival. Skjoldbjærg has yet to follow up on this debut success with a film of comparable merit, but there’s plenty of time ahead of him. This Norwegian film should not be confused with its Hollywood remake, starring Al Pacino, released in 2002 under the same title. The original version is a combination murder mystery and psychological thriller of deft construction.

The Story: After a murder in a small town in northern Norway, a pair of ace-detectives are flown in from Oslo to help crack the case. One is Jonas Engstrom (Stellan Skarsgærd) and the other his partner Erik Vik (Sverre Anker Ousdal). It is summer and they will be working in the so-called land of the midnight sun, where the only thing separating one day from the next is a brief sliver of twilight. Engstrom is known to be a brilliant investigator, though his methods sometimes stray to the unorthodox. His recent record is tainted by his having been observed in intimate conversation with a witness. Vik, on the other hand, is a pleasant, fatherly, older man who is exhibiting early signs of Alzheimer’s disease.

The murder victim was an attractive girl of seventeen, Tanja Lorentzen (Marlea Mathiesen), whose body was found in a trash bag at the dump, without clothing. What makes the case unusual is that the body had been systematically cleaned to remove all evidence. Her hair had been washing and her hands and nails scrubbed clean. The medical examiner further indicates that there are no indications of sexual assault. She had died of cerebral hemorrhaging due to some kind of trauma to the head.

The girl was last reported seen leaving a party intoxicated. Her knapsack is soon discovered near a shed on the beach. Jonas immediately has the knapsack returned to where it was found to bait a trap. He makes a plea on television for information about a missing knapsack with contains clues of critical importance to solving the crime. They then stake out the shed in hopes that the killer will return.

Sure enough, the killer shows up and when he realizes it’s a trap, he runs into the shed. The police move in gingerly, figuring that they will soon have their man, as there is no way for him to escape from the shed. Surprise, surprise! Inside, they discover a trap door leading to an extended tunnel. Jonas is quickly in pursuit down the tunnel with other police close behind. The tunnel emerges on a section of the beach, where it is misty and the daylight dull. The killer is nowhere in sight, but cannot have gotten far. Jonas divides his team up and sends them in various directions. One officer, Arne Zakariassen (Kristian Figenschow), is shot in the leg by the killer, some distance from Jonas. Jonas is quickly in pursuit, spots a figure in the fog, the figure shoots at him, and Jonas shoots back, dropping the man in his tracks. Jonas approaches and is shocked to discover that it is his partner, Vik. Vik had misremembered Jonas’s instructions, had zigged when he should have zagged, and dies in Jonas’s arms.

The plot now develops its special complication. Jonas, for one or more reasons, decides that he doesn’t want to take responsibility for the accidental shooting of his partner. Perhaps it is because of the recent black mark already on his record. He finds the killer's gun on the beach not far from where he himself had been standing. He pockets the gun and reports that the killer shot Vik and got away. The investigation of Vik’s killing is assigned to a local cop, a female, Hilde Hagen (Gisken Armand). Now there are two cases to be resolved.

Jonas’s case soon centers on two main suspects. The first obvious suspect is the deceased’s boyfriend, Eilert (Bjorn Moan). Eilert and Tanja had been seen arguing at the party and he has no alibi for the late night hour at which she was killed. Jonas notices, however, while inspecting Tanja’s apartment, that she has many expensive dresses that neither she nor Eilert could afford. Jonas discovers that Tanja was also seeing an older man and that Eilert had just learned of this on the night of the party from Tanja’s best friend, Froya Selmer (Marianne O. Ulrichsen). Froya doesn’t know the man’s name but knows that he is an author of crime stories. An autographed book in Tanja’s apartment soon identifies the man as Jon Holt (Bjørn Floberg). He becomes the second suspect.

While the facts of the mystery case are developing, an equal amount of attention is devoted to illuminating Jonas’s character. First, he is having a great deal of difficulty adjusting to the continual daylight and is not able to sleep. His functioning gradually becomes increasingly impaired. At first, it is just excess daytime sleepiness such as nodding off while driving, but gradually it progresses to outright hallucinations. We also learn that Jonas has no attachments – no wife, no children, no parents or siblings. He once had a brother, but he died when Jonas was eleven and Jonas got in the habit of lying about it to evade questions. Jonas’s interactions with the young women in the story are also peculiar and unprofessional at times. He lacks good impulse control. At one point, for example, he has Froya (a teenager) in his car and places his hand on her knee, then moves it slowly up along her thigh. In another scene, he is in a back room at his hotel with Ane (Maria Bonnevie), who is the comely young adult innkeeper, and responds to her flirting and overtures by embracing her so brusquely and aggressively that she is frightened and runs off. I think it an exaggeration to call this episode a near-rape as several reviewers do, but it certainly indicates poor social skills and reprehensible behavior on the part of Jonas in dealing with young women. Jonas is clearly not a conventional hero, as evidenced by both his cover-up of the accidental shooting of his partner and his groping of girls and young women.

Jonas gets a telephone call from Holt. Holt knows that he has been identified as a suspect but also knows that Jonas lied about the shooting of Vik. Both know the other to be responsible for a death. Later, Jonas tracks down Holt. Holt claims that Tanja’s death was accidental – that she was intoxicated and out of control, had banged her head, complained of sleepiness for several hours, and then had expired. Not only are both Jonas and Holt responsible for a death, but both deaths were apparently accidents rather than murders. There’s a degree of parallel in their situations but Jonas has the advantage of his position of authority as a top detective. On the other hand, the local detective, Hilde, is suspicious about Jonas’s evasive answers to questions as well as his erratic behavior.

Who’s good, who’s bad? Who lives? Who dies? How is each case resolved? Check out this excellent film for all of the answers. There are several twists and turns to go.

Themes: It’s not easy to identify a theme for a film of this kind. I would suggest, however, that it’s basic message is the moral ambiguity of real people. Let’s face it! Very few of us are all good or all bad, all hero or all villain. I drive down the highway and sometimes stop to allow a motorist stuck at a driveway an opportunity to get ahead. I leave space for people to turn into gas stations or parking lots rather than closing up on the car in front of me. Other times, I swear at or toot my horn at a driver who pulls out in front of me too abruptly for my taste. Like most of you, my head pieces include both halos and horns. We are mostly morally ambiguous people and all the more so because our brain chemistry and psychic stability is affected by so many different aspects of our life: the quality of our sleep, what we eat, drugs we take, stress, and how long it’s been since we had a satisfying romp in the hay. Jonas is not a good guy nor a bad guy. Not, at least, in entirety. He’s a dedicated professional, intelligent, treats his colleagues respectfully. He gropes young women and takes an opportunity to evade responsibility for a mistake. Heck, we’ve had more than one President of the United States in my lifetime that did as much. I could name two gropers and three cover-ups right off the top of my head.

Production Values: For a first film, director Erik Skjoldbjærg had given us something truly remarkable. It goes well beyond the usual murder mystery in several respects. First, there’s Skjoldbjærg’s use of the circumstance of the midnight sun as virtually another character in the film. It is like the eye that never blinks to Jonas’s shame and guilt about the death of his partner. Jonas has no place to hide, no shadows of night in which to carry out his cover-up. The perpetual sunlight is also, of course, the cause of Jonas’s sleep disorder – a disorder of the sleep-wake cycle. What Jonas suffers from is like jet lag on a grand scale. Without a light cue to link up to, his brain chemistry is all out of whack. Some reviewers doubt that Jonas’s sleep deficit would last for days, but they’re underestimating the disruption caused by the absence of a day-night cycle, especially for those not used to it. Skjoldbjærg also uses the midnight sun phenomenon to create the mood and tone of his entire film. The sunlight is shown in piercing bright light streaking through the shades by which Jonas is trying to keep it out of his hotel room. The outdoor shots all appear to be in hazy light, often distorted by mist or fog. The color scheme is tightly bound to dull browns and grays, deep greens and other faded colors.

Another special aspect of Insomnia is the extent to which it is able to rivet our attention on the inner psychology of the characters – Jonas in particular. Insomnia is really much more of a psychological thriller than pure murder mystery. The murder mystery is actually less convoluted and with fewer red herrings than is typical of that genre, but the psychological turmoil of the protagonist is more profound. As a top detective, Jonas is a shrewd, tough, and calculating man, but insomnia has that strange capacity to alter the faculties of any person. No person, no matter how psychologically robust, can withstand the effects of sleep deprivation indefinitely. It is the fact of the insomnia that deepens the psychological issues. Skarsgard had an extraordinarily difficult part to play. Not only did he have to exhibit credible emotional reactions to the various events of the film but he also had to convince us that his mental condition was in a steady descent over the course of the story. That he pulled it off, seemingly effortlessly, is no small wonder. Skarsgard’s resume also includes The Unbearable Lightless of Being (1988), Breaking the Waves (1996), Good Will Hunting (1997), Amistad (1997), Ronin (1998), and Time Code (2000). He was the math professor in Good Will Hunting.

A third special aspect of Insomnia is that it defies several of the stereotypical plot requirements of Hollywood films. The protagonist is as much antihero as hero. We admire his intelligence and perseverance but we dislike his inability to take responsibility for his actions and his interactions with the young female characters. Jonas is a morally ambivalent man and we, as viewers, have to deal with that ambiguity in our response to the film. To some extent, Insomnia is part way into the tradition of film noir. Then, in addition, Skjoldbjærg gives us an ending which defies the standard Hollywood suppositions about consequences of good and evil. I won’t say more because I intentionally chose not to divulge the ending.

Other reviews here at Epinions have provided very thorough analysis of the comparison of this Norwegian version of Insomnia with its Hollywood remake from 2002, directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Al Pacino, Robin Williams, and Hilary Swank. I’ll limit my observations to making the point that the differences between the two versions epitomize the differences in general between foreign films and Hollywood films. Hollywood removed the moral ambiguity (making Pacino’s lead character more obviously evil, the killing of his partner less obviously an accident, the killer fully evil, and the female cop less comprehending), provided the standard moral message (evil people must die), cast the film in accordance with the star system for mass box office appeal, diminished the silent character of the midnight sun, and dumbed-down the story so that no mental energy would have to be expended on the part of viewers. In short, they turned a piece of cinematic literature into pabulum for mass consumption. They know how to make money.

Bottom-Line: I’m giving this film four stars (I’d give the Hollywood remake just three). As a murder mystery, it’s not exceptional, but as a psychological study, it earns its fourth star. Overall, it’s a high quality script. The mood of the film built in by the fine direction of Skjoldbjærg is very effective. There are good performances all around, but most especially from Skarsgard. I highly recommend this film. Insomnia is in Norwegian with English subtitles and has a running time of 97 minutes. It would be rated R, I imagine, for nudity and violence.


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You might want to check out another excellent film from Norway:

The Other Side of Sunday

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age