Insomnia (1997)

This Swedish film is the original for the better-known Al Pacino-Robin Williams, Christopher Nolan-directed 2002 remake. It is much sparer, more arratively oblique yet more realistic than the latter and the central character, Engstrom played by Stellan Skarsgård is more morally compromised as a detective who accidentally kills his partner and then tries to cover-up his mistake.  .

Less of a thriller than a study in alienation, director and co-writer Skjoldbaerg takes an understated, perhaps a particularly Scandinavian approach, to his protagonist’s condition, being more interested in depicting his protagonist's moral decay than solving a murder. The coldness of the climate is echoed in the coldness of the soul of both Engstrom and the killer with whom he gets entangled in mutual deception.

The Hollywood version attributed more of the evil to the killer, making Pacino’s character as much a victim as a perpetrator. Here there is no such indulgence (compare the dog-shooting sequences). Perhaps because I saw the Hollywood version first and thus knew the plot the,characteristically Nordic detachment seemed somewhat overstated, so it may have more bite if viewed first. The two films taken together do, however, present an interesting contrast in cultural and artistic values.

 

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