THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO
The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, is the first film in the “Millenium” trilogy based on a series of books by the late Swedish journalist turned novelist, Stieg Larsson. The books themselves have been international best sellers, and the film has already garned a similar response throughout Europe, becoming the highest grossing Swedish film ever produced.
Without question, the most interesting and exciting aspect of the film, and I suspect the novel as well, is the central character of Lisabeth Salander (Noomi Rapace.) When first introduced she is barely recognizable as a woman, a vision of black leather, dyed hair and piercings. But we also see, right away, that she is a brain, someone who makes a living hacking computers to uncover details on individuals, a task for which she is well compensated by large companies. It is for one of those jobs that she becomes obsessed with Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), a disgraced journalist who has been hired the head of a wealthy family, Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube) to solve the mysterious disappearance of his favorite niece 40 years ago. Unfortunately, the Vangers, Henrik’s siblings and their children are not entirely cooperative, and Blomkvist is increasingly threatened the closer he comes to solving the mystery.
What’s unusual here is that it is Lisabeth, with her extremely tough, practically sadistic mentality who rides to the rescue in more ways than one. Thanks to her cyber stalking, for example, Blomkvist finds crucial information. At just about every point at which he hits a wall, it is Lisabeth who saves the day. Thankfully, Ms. Rapace’s ability to channel a cold Scandinavian rage lifts this film beyond a conventional PBS Mystery episode. We are offered some tidbits of Lisabeth’s backstory, as well as the brutality she still suffers as a woman in the present day. But I don’t even get close by describing her as tough, I can’t even think of a female hero who has ever kicked as much ass, not even St. Angie herself.
The original title in Sweden is Men Hate Women (Männ som hatar kvinnor) which is exactly what Larsson’s heroine is meant to emphasize. He was a leftish journalist, an expert on neo nazis and other European hate groups, and apparently a very clear eyed, tell it like it is journalist and writer. The film is, at time, disturbingly violent in it’s depictions of abuse but there is nothing really pleasurable about how these scene’s are shot, even when Lisabeth is exacting her revenge.
As a crime thriller the film is average, as a character study it’s fascinating and there are, happily, two more Lisabeth Salander films to look forward to.
The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo opens March 19, 2010.
Directed by Niels Arden Oplev; written by Rasmus Heisterberg and Nikolaj Arcel, based on Männ som hatar kvinnor, by Steig Larsson; produced by Sören Staermose; Director of Photography, Eric Kress; edited by Anne Østerud and Jannus Billeskov Jansen. Released by Music Box Films. Running time: 152 minutes.
With: Noomi Rapace (Lisbeth Salander); Michael Nyqvist (Mikael Blomkvist); Sven-Bertil Taube (Henrik Vanger); Lena Endre (Erika Berger); Peter Haber (Martin Vanger); Peter Andersson (Nils Bjurman); Marika Lagercrantz (Cecila Vanger) and Ingvar Hirdwall (Dirch Frode.)
