Swedish detective Jonas Engström is "fed up with reviving dead people." But he will be forever doomed to reviving at least one--himself. Engström is as close to "living dead" as one can get. But the audience isn't completely unaware of his state of mind, thanks to Skjoldbjærg's subtle--and sometimes not-so-subtle--expressionist details.

Soon after he kills Erik Vik, we see it rain for the first time in the ever-sunny Norwegian town. Engström is driving solemnly in his car and encounters an unrelenting, foreboding red light glaring at him through the pouring rain. A blinking sound fittingly accompanies this moment, inciting a feeling of annoyance in Engström; that he feels something is telling him to stop. But he glares back, showing his resentment for it and continues with his deception regardless.

Another car scene directly connects with our detective's mental state. While filming Engström driving Froya to the dump site, Skjoldbjærg makes sure to keep the rear-view mirrors in the frames. The past, no matter how fast they try to get away from it, is always "closer than it appears," for Engström as well as for Frøya.

The scene of Engström and Holt's first meeting is also quite potent with expressionism. At this point, Engström knows Holt has got something on him and he feels he is barely hanging onto his power and authority--he's hanging by a wire, and so they meet on an aerial tram.

And finally, in the style of Lang's Testament of Dr. Mabuse, Skjoldbjærg batters us ever-so-subconsciously with sound to stimulate in us a feeling of Engström's cracking mind. The oppressive tone, like a sluggish busy signal, increases the tension in us while Engström goes through Tanja's apartment--he is at the end of the line.

In the long history of Hollywood remakes of foreign films, Christopher Nolan’s remake of Erik Skoldbjærg’s Insomnia is far from a disappointment. However, the filmmaking skill and techniques used by Skoldbjærg outstrips the star power of the American remake, which daringly cast Robin Williams as the murderer (which certainly drove the public interest of the film). While Nolan ably directed the American version, providing it with an excellent inner tension and imagery that echoed his previous film Memento, it could be argued that this first-time Swedish director had more freedom to create disturbing and potent imagery, especially imagery which suggests internal feelings of the protagonist, Jonas Engström (portrayed by Stellan Skarsgård).

Early in the film, Engström spots murderer Jon Holt on a bus, and he begins pursuit on foot. Suddenly, he is hit by a car, knocking him to the ground. He quickly brushes himself off, shaken by this unforeseen event—however, his resolve allows him to force the driver of the car to pursue Holt’s bus. Skoldbjærg quickly cuts to a shot of Engström in the passenger seat from outside the broken windshield, highlighting the irony of the situation. One of the most striking examples of expressionist filmmaking in Insomnia is the broken windshield of the car, seeming to evoke several meanings at once. It could be interpreted to symbolize the state of mind of the protagonist (cracked and unstable after several nights of no sleep) or it could even be a symbol of his foolishly single-minded pursuit of Holt—his clear path to the murderer interrupted by unforeseen events (e.g. the cracked windshield). In any case, the image of Engström gazing through the broken windshield evokes the feeling of a desperate, cold-blooded psychopath, although whether this is true is open to debate.

Perhaps the most interesting uses of expressionist techniques are the sounds that represent the feelings of Engström. After his partner is killed on the job, he returns to the hotel with thoughts “buzzing” through his mind. I say “buzzing” because this is how Skoldbjærg represents his frantic state of mind. When the receptionist turns to retrieve paperwork, Engström’s face goes blank and quick, sharp, insect-like sounds are raised in the soundtrack. They continue to rise until the climax, when he is “snapped out of” his distracted state by the returning receptionist.

Through these techniques (and several more), Skoldbjærg has clearly defined himself as a new filmmaker to watch. Not only has he done this, he has also provided reason to look out for other foreign films, which (as he has proven) can be much more daring and subversive than their Hollywood counterparts.

In the 1997 film Insomnia, color is repeatedly called upon to convey the souring emotions of Jonas Engström as he sinks deeper and deeper into his own lies. The turning point in the movie was cleverly shown during one of the many scenes when Jonas is in the lobby of his hotel. At this point in the film, green has already began seeping its way into the mise-en-scène, therefore it is no surprise that the background consists of two shafts of color, one green, one white. However, as the camera slowly pans around Engström, the true state of his mind is revealed, for although the colors of the background alternate between white and green while the camera is panning, it never settles on those colors; the camera finally comes to rest on black, just as Engström’s soul has.

By the time that Engström finally meets the killer, he has become so evil that the roles of good and bad have been reversed. The killer now wears white while Engström is confined to black and green. It is interesting to note that once Engström convinces the killer to help him in his plot, in the very next scene we see the killer dressed in green, a sign that Engström has infected him as well.

Perhaps the most striking color change in the film comes at the very end. In this scene, Engström is packing up so that he can leave. In the closet there are many shirts, but only one with a plastic bag over it. In a very similar scene at the beginning of the film, only one of the shirts he was putting into the closet was bagged. The camera paused for a short moment on this bagged shirt, giving it meaning. The shirt in the bag represents the protagonist’s soul, the shimmering bag imbuing it with a spiritual otherworldliness. In that beginning scene, that shirt is white. Engström is still innocent. But in the last moments of the film, the shirt in the bag has turned black. This last comment on Engström cements the downfall of his character as well as this film’s status as expressionistic.



desire
response by FROSTY FRAU

In Insomnia the never-ending lines symbolize Detective Engström’s imprisonment. He can’t sleep. He yearns to escape from his sleep-deprived hell. As viewers we aren’t given background information on the detective. Does he like his partner or harbor ill will toward him? However, this film’s focus isn’t the relationship between the two men. Instead, it feels like the culmination of a long-term mental unraveling. Every scene has a background of strategically placed lines--on the building exteriors, and the glass block walls; in the killer’s house, familiar household wall art even becomes placed in an orderly, regimented fashion.

The detective’s angst is present before the accidental shooting of his partner. His deep introspection compared to his partner’s whimsical manner reveals Engström’s fragile interior. Sex is also a strong undercurrent in the film. Opportunities present themselves for romantic liaisons with the hotel desk clerk and a female colleague, but ultimately all the Detective can do is tensely peer at women or aggressively and inappropriately grope them. To say the Detective derives sexual pleasure from hearing the two young lovers have sex would be incorrect; if anything, he is physically tormented by the scene. The quick shots of nude bodies and the heavy metal music seem to intensify his instability, signified by his continual sweating. In another sexually charged scene, an imagined (?) fondling of an underage witness occurs. He has demonstrated his failure to respond sexually to available women; is he a pedophile instead?

As he drives the young woman to the city dump, an accidental brush of her thigh leads to sex. Given his mental state and the offhanded way he “suggests” she come with him, seeing the scenario play out the way it does is not surprising. The car speeds up as the Detective ventures into dangerous territory. But when the audience starts to believe what is happening, the color of the sky changes, the action abruptly stops and suddenly it’s as if the previous act never happened. Even in the Detective’s sickest moments, we see the true human he could become if only he would come clean about his role in the death of his partner.




the apparating man
response by RIGBY REARDON

Insomnia is expressionist because the camera can’t seem to keep a hold on Detective Engström; he’s just too quick for it. There are many instances in the film where the camera will show the detective magically appearing in many different areas of the same shot with no real life plausible way of how he does it. In the original scene in the fog, where they chase after the killer, there is a shot where Engström looks to his left and the camera whip pans in that direction only to rest on him again looking the opposite way. This gives the audience the impression that all he can find is himself; he probably can’t even see his hand in front of his face clearly. It shows that he feels lost and contained. A similar use of camera and editing is used later for a slightly different expressionistic effect.

When he searches the killer’s apartment Detective Engström walks right in front of the camera, which moves slower than he does, so it loses him. The camera then pans back to the direction he’d just walked from to reveal him standing there. He looks to his left, and when the camera pans in that direction we see him suddenly in the other room. It’s as if he keeps turning around to watch himself in another area of the house. He seems to float around it like a ghost. He knows he’s not supposed to be there so he acts more as a presence than that of a real person. It also shows how through he’s being in his search, he’s going all over the house, not leaving a stone unturned.

At the end of the movie, in the other house, Detective Engström looks over and sees Tanja lying on the couch. At this point the camera starts a 360-degree pan to the right and various cops start to walk into the room, and while the detective does not move this time, once the camera is returned to the couch Tanja is no longer there and there is nothing indicating that she was ever there. Yet, the detective looks at the couch as though he can still see her. It shows his guilt about the situation. He was going to let her killer go so that he could get away with his accident. It doesn’t matter whether they got him in the end or not, he had decided against justice to save his own skin. No matter how much time passes he will always see that body lying there on that couch. Therefore, through pans and quick edits Insomnia creates three different, but still expressionistic, effects.

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