MOVIE REVIEW

'Insomnia' Is Gripping Thriller From Norway

By KEVIN THOMAS, TIMES STAFF WRITER

Friday June 5, 1998

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     As the opening titles unreel for "Insomnia," an imaginative psychological thriller from Norway that demands total attention, we glimpse a pretty young woman meeting a grisly fate. Her death brings to a town in the north of Norway a pair of veteran Oslo police investigators, Jonas Engstrom (Stellan Skarsgard) and Erik Vik (Sverre Anker Ousdal).
     Engstrom, celebrated in his field, takes charge of the investigation and swiftly devises a plan to snare the young woman's killer. But incomplete information on the part of the local police force causes the plan to backfire tragically, and "Insomnia" turns into a harrowing portrait of a man struggling against disintegration as he strives to conduct his investigation with his customary authority.
     By now moviegoers know well the impact and range of Skarsgard; among his better known recent films are "Breaking the Waves," in which he played the warm, earthy oil rigger who meets a shocking fate, and "Good Will Hunting," in which he was an MIT mathematics professor jealous of Matt Damon's untutored genius. Skarsgard's Engstrom, who had left his native Sweden in the wake of a scandal, becomes a man who switches from investigating to covering up.
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     Plaguing his effort to keep a grip on himself is his insomnia, heightened by the fact that he's wound up in the land of the midnight sun during the summer--in a hotel without blackout blinds and drapes. Skarsgard persuades us to empathize with Engstrom while never flinching from the ruthlessness the man displays in protecting himself.
     In formidable feature debuts director Erik Skjoldbjaerg and writer Nikolaj Frobenius do such a terrific job of realizing their story visually--Hitchcock would approve--that if your attention wanders at just the wrong moment you can miss something that will prove to be a major development. Hitchcock believed that true suspense derived from letting the audience in on key information that other characters cannot know--then make us grow more anxious about how everything will turn out.
     Also like Hitchcock, the filmmakers concern themselves with themes of guilt and transference as Engstrom and the killer begin to echo each other. "Insomnia," which its director calls "a film noir with light, not darkness, as its dramatic force," is a work of style and irony with a strong sense of mood and atmosphere. It's virtually flawless as it builds inexorably to a finish that is as impossible to predict as it is satisfying.

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Insomnia, 1998. Unrated. A First Run Features presentation of a Norsk Film/Nordic Screen presentation with the participation of Norwegian Filminstitute and Gunnar Svensrud. Director Eik Skjoldbjaerg. Producers Petter J. Borgli, Tomas Backstrom and Tom Revlov. Screenplay by Nikolaj Frobenius. Cinematographer Erling Thurmann-Andersen. Editor Hakon Overas. Costumes Runa Fonne. Music Geir Jenssen. Production designer Eli Bo. In Norwegian, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour, 37 minutes. Stellan Skarsgard as Jonas Engstrom. Sverre Anker Ousdal as Erik Vik. Bjorn Floberg as Jon Holt. Gisken Armand as Hilde Hagen. Maria Bonnevie as Ane.