Sightlines · how to watch
How to watch Insomnia
1997 · Erik Skjoldbjærg · Insomnia on Sightlines
5 things to watch and listen for on a first viewing, without spoilers, and 3 more once you have seen it. Each names something you can see or hear, the pattern it belongs to, and what noticing it gives you. How these keys work.
On a first viewing
Watch for a roller blind that will not stay down. (light)
Light keeps finding its way into Jonas's hotel room through blinds, cardboard, and doors no matter how he blocks it.
Payoff: There is no darkness left for him to hide in, only light he cannot fully block.
Notice how flat and overexposed the outdoor scenes look. (camera)
Thurmann-Andersen shoots scrub, rock, and water under a sun that flattens depth instead of giving it shape or shadow.
Payoff: The landscape offers no cover, no shadow, and no relief from being seen. In the reading: any-space-whatever (emptiness). Deleuze calls a space stripped of any role to play an any-space-whatever; here it is emptied by too much light.
Watch Skarsgård's face for what stops registering as the film goes on. (performance)
His performance is built on subtraction: no tremors, no outbursts, just an affect that thins out scene by scene.
Payoff: The stillness is the breakdown. You are watching exhaustion instead of hysteria.
Listen for the fan, the fly, sounds that never stop. (sound)
Biosphere's score never resolves into a cue, and the sound design keeps small irritants running under every scene so silence is never available.
Payoff: The sound refuses to rest, matching a man who cannot sleep through his own lie.
Watch where Jonas stands relative to the other officers in group scenes. (staging)
He is staged at the edge of groups, included but adrift, while Hilde Hagen is almost always visible doing her job properly.
Payoff: The blocking quietly measures the distance between him and everyone still doing honest work.
The 3 rewatch keys open on this page when you choose "Seen it?".
Carry this in: Watch the light, not the shadows. Nothing here can hide, including him.