_I Can't Sleep_ reviewed by Cynthia Fuchs The dilemma of "security" haunts Clair Denis' beautiful new film, _I Can't Sleep_. Asked to define it during a radio interview, an unseen politician struggles to sound both rational and consoling, but the effect is disconcerting: "Security means being in a safe place and knowing it, or believing it. It means being reassured. It's very subjective. Who can be safe from death?" As he speaks, the camera passes slowly over the exterior of an apartment building: you see into windows from a distance, spot a young boy on his balcony, feel the stillness and illusion of safety that allow urban life--despite its randomness, loneliness, and occasional chaos--to continue. It's the surface of everyday life made briefly eerie and extremely clear. While this scene obviously quotes from Hitchcock's _Rear Window_, it's also, more subtly, a response to today's "true crime" sensationalism. The politician is trying to put a assuaging spin on a string of murders, one of several plots in _I Can't Sleep_, based loosely on one of France's rare serial killers, Thierry Paulin, aka the "Monster of Montmartre." Paulin was a black Gay man who, sometimes aided by his white lover, terrorized Paris from 1984-1987 by murdering at least 20 elderly women. Though he was captured, Paulin died of AIDS-related complications before going to trial; his partner, Jean-Thierry Mathurin, is currently serving a 20-year sentence. But Denis' film is not a study of individual homicidal psychopathology. Its focus on contemporary alienation is more nuanced, more general. There are three characters at its center--the murderer Camille (Richard Courcet), his brother Theo (Alex Descas), and an aspiring actress just arrived from Lithuania, Daiga (Katerina Golubeva)--all looking for some kind of security, none expecting to find it. Their paths cross only intermittently, but their stories are surprisingly similar, presented here in short fragments, cramped interiors, and rich colors (blues, pinks, reds). The film's unsettling rhythms and tight frames underline its basic question: is it safer to maintain distance or to pursue intimacy? As its title suggests, _I Can't Sleep_ is concerned with restlessness, movement without direction or resolution. It opens with Daiga's arrival in Paris by car, as the radio runs a report on the "granny murders." She takes little notice, though, because she speaks little French. Throughout the film she remains an observant outsider, not quite acting, but hovering, drinking lots of coffee, exploring the Parisian streets at night. Eventually she finds work as a maid in the hotel where Camille shares a room with his lover (Vincent Dupont). She's intrigued by them, but remains detached, a function of the film's careful deconstruction of thriller conventions, its insistence on the banality of crime and violence. Camille is also enigmatic, a performer in search of an audience. We see him in Theo's tiny bathroom, removing his make-up after a night out. Later we see him perform in androgynous drag--a tight black gown and bare feet--a show that's touching, almost desperate, but also self-protective and remote. Even the murders he commits are shot at a distance, they're awkward, ugly, without climax. The old women are helpless, he's more preoccupied than demonic. If Camille's not exactly sympathetic, he's symptomatic of a pervasive malaise, and his self-absorption is surpassed by his brother's. That Theo has no clue what Camille is up to (and feels betrayed at the end, when he finds it out) points to his own sense of isolation. He's homesick for his native Martinique and cold to his wife, Mona (Beatrice Dalle, from _Betty Blue_), only able to connect emotionally with their young son. The precision with which Denis captures all of this fragmentation and frustration is stunning. It's a disturbing film, starkly gorgeous and original. Cynthia Fuchs teaches film/media studies and is coordinator of the queer studies project at George Mason University. Copyright by Cynthia Fuchs. All rights reserved. Please do not reprint this review without the permission of the author. This review originally appeared in the Philadelphia _City Paper_.