By Suneal Kolluri
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
[email protected]
Psychological thrillers can drive audiences crazy.
Two years ago, writer/director Christopher Nolan’s
“Memento” did just that. It burst onto the scene with
its backward style and intriguing premise that people everywhere
simply went nuts over.
The film surprised everyone, even Nolan himself with its success
and the following it received.
“I always hoped that it would find its core audience,
people like me who are interested in that kind of story. And the
core audience was definitely bigger than I had expected, and it was
great,” Nolan said in an interview after his appearance at
UCLA.
This Friday, Nolan will release his next film,
“Insomnia,” a big budget Alaskan murder mystery that is
a psychological thriller of a different sort. The film is a remake
of the 1997 film of the same title written by Nikolaj Frobenius and
Erik Skjoldbjaerg, and stars such Academy Award winners as Al
Pacino, Robin Williams and Hillary Swank.
To relate the intensity of such star power, Nolan said,
“At first, I was a little shocked, because I’m standing
there with the Godfather … And you can’t really tell him
how to act, he knows how to do that.” Nolan added,
“He’s really an amazing actor.”
While “Memento” focused on a character played by Guy
Pearce, whose complete loss of memory created a wildly enigmatic
murder mystery, “Insomnia” focuses on a star detective
whose mind is clouded by a severe case of insomnia.
Detective Will Dormer, played by Pacino, is brought in from Los
Angeles to solve the murder of a high school girl. Dormer
quickly discovers the killer, Walter Finch (Williams), and the
two compete in a battle of wits involving deceit and trickery.
Dormer must keep his discovery a secret because Finch saw Dormer
accidentally shoot his partner during the first chase scene,
something Dormer doesn’t want to admit to his superiors.
The brilliant-minded Finch, through blackmail and devious
tricks, continually attempts to convince the sleep-deprived
detective that the two are in the same boat, and should thus work
together to further their respective goals.
As in “Memento,” the film’s plot is fairly
straightforward, until the psychological aspect tweaks it just
enough to add a different perspective.
“The challenge for a filmmaker is that you work in a
populous medium and there’s a sense that you have to give the
viewer a familiar story. The fun in this different angle is that
you get to present these stories in a different way,” Nolan
said.
Nolan also attributes the uneasiness of his films to the twisted
psychological state of its characters.
“It creates a little more degree of uncertainty, it makes
them a little more unsure of their footing,” Nolan said.
Throughout “Insomnia,” a lack of sleep continually
dumbs down the clever mind of the detective. As the story proceeds,
he becomes considerably less able to maintain focus and is more
vulnerable to the tricks of the wily villain.
Thus, the standard cops and robbers tale gets a twist as the
psychological instability of the central protagonist shapes the
viewer’s perspective.
In this murder mystery, the Sherlock Holmes no longer just looks
at the clues and ingeniously solves the crime committed by a
psychopath. But rather, Sherlock himself is kind of a psycho.
“You think you know what a story is, and it becomes
something different, because you’re seeing this film from the
eyes of someone who sees it in a different way,” Nolan
said.
The distorted psychology of the characters also plays a role in
Nolan’s construction of truth in his film. Detective Dormer
doesn’t know why he shot his partner because police office
politics were set up to make very logical a subconscious desire to
want his partner dead.
Was it really just an accident? Or did Dormer purposely shoot
him believing that what his partner planned to tell his superiors
would cost Dormer his job?
Much like in “Memento,” the truth behind the
characters’ motives is a considerably unattainable object,
and the deranged psychology of the characters perpetuates this
confusion.
“That idea of a central narrator whose judgment is flawed
highlights this aspect of truth,” Nolan said.
Because of Dormer’s inability to solve the mystery of his
mind, the audience no longer has all the answers. Along with this
uncertainty comes the proposition that the truth is never clear
cut.
And thus, Nolan’s newest psychological thriller will allow
viewers to look at a common story told in a different light.
“I think it makes you look at the story from a different
perspective. And in doing that, you make different connections in
the story and you see different things,” Nolan said.