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Insomnia * Christopher Nolan (2001)

This new film of Christopher Nolan (Following and Memento) has been long awaited. Quite a strange story with the release here. It ‘premiered’ in the Netherlands on the filmfestival Vlissingen, but the official premiere would be a month later. In the meantime it played in Vlissingen and one other city. Now it plays in only three. This is strange, because Memento did well and there are some nice names on the list here, Al Pacino to name the best-known.

Insomnia is a re-make of a film with the same name from Erik Skjoldbjærg from Norway (1997). I have seen this one a long time ago, at least, I think so, because the whole time I had the idea that I already saw the film and this isn’t really possible, so I suppose I have seen the Norse version.

Besides that I find the fact of the remake quite cheap of a man who wrote the brilliant script of Memento himself, Insomnia isn’t as good as it’s predessor. Insomnia is nice -though- but totally different. It is a thriller about an LA-cop who is sent to Alaska to solve a murder. The first 45 minutes remind a lot of Twin Peaks. The atmosphere is strange, there is a brilliant cop coming to a small town solving a murder. Because it is always light, Will Dormer suffers from insomnia and he gets strange ‘visions’. Further he has got internal affairs on his back searching for a mistake of his. His partner seems to want to cooperate and either by mistake or on purpose Dormer shoots him in an exiting scene when a bunch of cops are chasing the killer in the fog.

Anyway, Insomnia is a nice film for an American audience who don’t like films in another language. Further it is virtually the same as the original and not really a good follow-up for Memento. Still a very nice film though!

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