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Sleepless Hulk
That lucky bastard Hollyfeld had the wonderful pleasure of catching Christopher Nolan's lastest movie, Insomnia, last week and we have his take on it today. I reviewed the script awhile back and adored it. We also have another sighting of that menacing green beast in San-Francisco. Have a wonderful week!
Insomnia Review
"Hollyfeld, here. The answer is 'yes', no matter what your question was about Insomnia. Can Christopher (Memento) Nolan pull off a traditionally structured thriller? Does Robin Williams actually make a convincing villain? Is Pacino on his way to another Oscar nomination? Yes, I tell you. Yes, yes, yes.
Well, strike that first statement, actually. If you were going to ask if Insomnia was perfect, I'd have to say 'no', but I still prefer it to Memento. Here, there are no narrative tricks for Nolan to use - the entire piece is a straightforward story of moral give-and-take, the kind of old-fashioned Hollywood tale the director said he was shooting for. The simplicity of its storytelling makes the complexities of its characters and themes even more impressive, and with the exception of an overly blunt ending, this makes for an ultimately more satisfying moviegoing experience. There's no confusion after Insomnia - you will understand what the film's ending means, I guarantee you - but this does not make it any less remarkable and absorbing.
Detective Will Dormer (Al Pacino) has just flown up to Nightmute, Alaska, where an unusual murder has occurred - the killer beat the victim to death, but afterwards calmly stripped her body clean of any evidence, knowing exactly what he was doing, what to look for, without the typical haste expected in crimes of passion. Dormer is a topflight detective, the kind rookie cops like Ellie Burr (Hilary Swank) study in school, so it seems unusual that he would come in on a simple murder, regardless of circumstances. More likely, he and his partner Eckhart (Martin Donovan) were sent as far away from home, and the rigorous Internal Affairs investigations going on there, as they could get. The plot thickens when, shortly after Eckhart admits that he's going to come clean about his past indiscretions, he winds up dead. Is Dormer responsible? Is anyone responsible? And can Dormer make the right decisions about his life and work with an insidious murderer trying to corrupt him, and 6 sleepless days clouding his judgment?
Dormer suffers from the title condition as a result of the twenty four hour sunlight in Alaska (why he doesn't simply buy a blindfold is never brought up, for some reason). The persistent daylight makes this the most well-lit film noir possibly in history, though far from the lightest in spirit or heart. As a result of is sleep deprivation, his behaviour begins to become more erratic throughout the film. On Day One, he is a cool, collected customer, picking up clues and picking out suspects with an almost instinctual skill. On Day two, he seems a little more emotional than usual, a little more distracted. Day Three, he starts seeing tricks of light, and the film's editing becomes more irregular. By Day Six, he hardly knows what he's doing, why he's doing it, or where he is half of the time, and the film's pacing fully reflects his feelings of unreality, giving the distinct impression that time isn't moving fast enough.
Regardless of our glimpse into Dormer's perception, though, the film never entirely lapses into arthouse gimmickry. Lighting starts to take an unusual form, and cuts become more jarring, but everything moves along at a steady clip, and the audience doesn't feel like it's missed anything. The characters in Hillary Seitz's screenplay are smart and familiar, and take us along wherever they go - we don't feel like they know much more than we do, and, what is even more important in a suspense film, we never feel too far ahead of them in return. Dormer sees a clue as soon as we do; Ellie picks up on changes in Dormer's behaviour as soon as it occurs. No one in the movie is dumb - which is a lot more than most movies of any kind can say.
To an extent, it is because they are intelligent that they begin to feel above the law - Williams is a perfect example as a serial killer who is certainly not a sadistic madman. He is a normal, seemingly healthy guy who, as soon as he realized he committed murder, thought about how to get out of the situation. Because he is a smart man, because he feels genuinely bad about his actions, he feels exempt from legal repercussions, and he sees a similar sense of superiority in Dormer, who may or may not have bent the law in order to put other murderers away for good, and just may have killed his partner in order to keep them there. The conversations between Dormer and the killer are so empathic and intelligent that is seems entirely out of place on a movie screen. There are no cool lines of dialogue, not even much in the way of threats - two sympathetic men are having a complex conversation about the complex situation they find themselves in, and are trying to calmly sort out a solution.
This unusual insight and intelligence makes Insomnia stand out above other Hollywood fare in recent, or even long term memory, and though I have never seen Erik Skjoldbjaerg's original 1997 film, the American version of Insomnia is nonetheless an obvious success: a thrilling thriller that doesn't insult the intelligence of either the characters or audience. Even the clichéd action sequence in the climax, though ultimately diminishing to the film's impact, doesn't seem too forced, although we do get the distinct impression that these characters would have at least attempted a calmer solution before resorting to gunplay.
Christopher Nolan's follow-up to Memento, yes, does prove him to be more than a one-hit wonder - he knows his trickery, but can use it to support a straightforward narrative as well as a gimmick movie. The moral ambiguities of Dormer and the killer are accentuated by the visual sleights of hand, but they are not one and the same as in Memento. Nolan's films focus on the altered perceptions of psychologically troubled people, as he has said, and Insomnia is the most mature example to date. As brilliant as his previous works have been, none have felt as complete as Insomnia - a full emotional journey, complex and thematically rich, with no question whatsoever as to whether the filmmakers were indeed capable. If ever this was in question, see the opening paragraph."
(Review submitted by Hollyfeld.)
Another Hulk Sighting
Here's another brief report from San-Francisco on the shooting of Hulk:
"I work one block from where current filming is taking place at Sansome & Vallejo Streets in San Francisco. They've been set up here since this past weekend. They're filming a large scene with a cable car/auto accident at the base of a steep SF hill. They've been waiting since yesterday for the weather to clear so that they can film a helicopter fly down the street and land for the shot. They have had to evacuate homes on the street due to local ordinances, I believe. There was footage shot yesterday by local news crews of large numbers of extras dressed in fatigues and SWAT uniforms marching with guns drawn down the street in unifromed order. Also a shot of J. Connolly kneeling and talking to E. Bana, as they sit in the middle of the street inside a ring of onlookers/soldiers. Also along the street, there are overturned cars and such, making one assume The Hulk had been down that path."
(Scoop sent by 'kutch'.)
Stay tuned...
That's all folks...
Jean-François Allaire (aka DeadPool)
Questions, comments, praise etc. Email me at deadpool@tnmc.org
Jean-François Allaire is TNMC's first columnist. At only 24 years old he has become a respected entertainment journalist, with his columns appearing in Corona's Coming Attractions and Scr(i)pt magazine. He also writes a monthly column in Screenwriters Monthly entitled 'The Last Word.' Hailing from Montreal this young writer is determined to dig up all the details on the movies before they hit your local theater. If you're part of a movie production then you really need to be talking to him.
