I saw Insomnia recently on DVD, and it’s a well-made film that manages to quieten both Robin Williams and Al Pacino. The Christopher Nolan connection becomes obvious after you’re told about it: To Pacino’s insomniac detective, awake for days on end in Alaska, every scene is like the segment of Memento that starts with Leonard running, uncertain as to whether he’s chasing or being chased. And they both feature a moment where our bewildered hero feels solid ground beneath his feet for a second and strikes out to make a difference, trusting to… something.
One the highlights is a car-ride near the end, when Pacino is completely losing it, everything blurring and snapping. It reminded me of Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, a horror/adventure game on the Gamecube. Rubbish colonated title aside, it’s a distinct improvement on the usual Resident Evil cobblers: The story is proper Cthulhoid monsters from before time, and is told via a series of flashes back through time, which both provides varied locales and reduces the incentive towards ammo-hoarding safe gameplay. Besides the health gauge and ammo, you also have to keep an eye on a magic meter, and your overall sanity. The last one is the real fun, and it’s arguably worth playing the game with as little sanity as plausible to watch the effects that happen. Sudden appearance of monsters, impossible spatial anomalies, and at one point the “end of demo” screen. Like in Insomnia, they only distract you for a second, but they slightly derange for longer. For long enough.