INSOMNIA (director: Erik Skjoldbjærg; cast: Stellan Skarsgård (Jonas Engström), Sverre Anker Ousdal (Erik Vik), Bjørn Floberg (Jon Holt), Gisken Armand (Hilde Hagen), Maria Bonnevie (Ane), Marianne O. Ulrichsen (Froya), Bjørn Moan (Eilert), Maria Mathiesen (Tanja), Norway-1997)
A pretty 17-year-old girl Tanja (Maria Mathiesen) is murdered in the land of the midnight-sun, in a remote northern town of Norway, where the sun never sets in the summer. Two expert homicide detectives arrive to help in the case. What makes this story different from others of this ilk, aside from the rarity of such a film coming out of Norway and being seen in America, is that one of the detectives, the brilliant Jonas Engstrom (Stellan Skarsgard), an exiled Swedish policeman, now working in Oslo, has charges against him that he had very intimate conversations with a key witness. He is still handicapped with untreated psychological problems. What happens to him here is even worse, as he accidently shoots his partner Erik Vik (Anker Ousdal) when a trap they set goes awry, and he spends the rest of the film trying to cover-up this fatality.
The story follows the brooding detective, who seems to be deeply troubled about personal matters and suffers from lack of sleep. How he performs as a detective is chillingly played out in the company of the Norwegian police, who look up to him for his professionalism and the emotionless manner in which he handles the assignment. That is, except for a women investigator, Ane (Bonnevie), who intuitively suspects that he is not all that he is supposed to be.
It is a bizarre murder since the killer washed the girl's hair and clothes and left no fingerprints, and did not sexually assault her. Two suspects are investigated by the police. The former boyfriend Eilert (Bjørn), who happened to break up with Tanja the night of her murder, at a party they attended. When the police are questioning him, clues arise pointing to another suspect, a writer (Jon Holt), who the detective believes is the older man she was seeing. When examining her wardrobe the detective finds dresses that he is sure she couldn't afford to get on her own or from Eilert.
A trap is set for the killer when the victim's knapsack is found in a remote shed. But the killer eludes the trap through police incompetence, by knowing that there was a trap door in the shed and fleeing into the foggy fjords before the police can apprehend him. This is where Engstrom shot his partner.
The murder mystery itself turns out to be no great mystery, as the expert detective quickly zeroes in on the killer. But the detective's strangely aggressive behavior with young women is frightening to behold, something that he can't seem to control. In one incident the flirtatious girlfriend of Tanja's, Froya (Ulrichsen), is sexually groped by him. This is something the killer understands that he has is in common with the detective, as they conspire to frame the innocent suspect in the crime.
Skarsgard's chilling performance does a pyschological number on his character, and the mysterious and soberly colorful Norwegian atmosphere gives this film an appealing flavor, allowing it to appear as if were a noir film. This more than makes up for the less than appealing story line. It is worth a look, if for no other reason, than to see how a murder is handled in a beautiful and idyllic country such as Norway. But this film has more to offer than that; it seriously questions police conduct and authority, as it leaves a very damaging message, something that is hard to ignore about authority figures the world-over: questioning if the police are mentally fit for the work they do.
REVIEWED ON 6/26/99 GRADE: B
Dennis Schwartz: " Ozus' World Movie Reviews"
http://www.sover.net/~ozus
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