For the twelve people who haven’t heard of Stieg Larsson, he is the Swedish journalist turned novelist who wrote the ‘Millennium trilogy’, a phenomenally successful crime series which has sold over 3 million copies world wide. The first book, ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’, was adapted onto the silver screen over a year ago, and has grossed about $100 million worldwide since then. Larsson tragically died in 2004 before his books were published so was unable to see what a phenomenon he had created. However, it has also been rumoured that Larsson left half finished manuscripts on his computer, so we might yet witness the release of more books and films by this talented thriller writer. Having heard all about the hype, this reporter settled down in the balmy French countryside to read all three books as ‘research’ for reviewing the DVD. How’s that for dedication?
‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ follows Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) and Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) as they try to solve a 40 year old mystery. Henrik Vanger, the retired head of a Swedish industrial dynasty, wants to learn more about the disappearance of his favourite niece Harriet and hires recently disgraced reporter Blomkvist to help him. The film becomes very dark very quickly as Blomkvist and Salander delve into the hidden secrets and lives of the Vanger family, all of which are suspected to be involved in the disappearance. Director Niels Arden Oplev keeps very close to the original material, even including the disturbing sexual and religious aspects that could have been downplayed by a less daring director. Larsson himself was an expert in right wing, anti-democratic extremism and Nazi organisations, and to ignore the more disturbing aspects of his book would have been an insult to its fans. Thus, many scenes are necessarily graphic, and the 18 rating strongly hints at some of the horrors you might witness; even pre-warned readers will find certain scenes hard to watch – they are far more hard hitting than words on a page.
The stand-out character in ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ is Lisbeth Salander. Lisbeth is different, very different, to most heroines. She lacks the usual beauty of the girl-next door or the femme fatale, instead sporting the grunge look with an all black outfit and multiple piercings and tattoos. She is a social outsider, but has computer skills (amongst other talents) like no one else; she also has a strong sense of justice, an unbreakable will and a violent streak. All of these qualities make her unpredictable and therefore completely interesting to watch. Although Noomi Rapace plays Lisbeth extremely well, the film’s audience cannot understand her as well as readers of the book do. Oplev is unable to get into her head fully through the medium of film, and as a result it is a lot harder for the audience to comprehend the complicated mechanics of her mind and see her as more than just another troubled young woman.
In fact, losing detail in the translation from page to screen seems to be a recurring flaw in the movie. Many minor characters and plot-lines are missed out in order to make the 500 page book into a more streamlined 153 minute film. This, however, means that the story loses a lot of depth and characterisation, and at times it feels that you don’t really get to know any of the characters that have been left in, particularly the two main ones. For instance, Lisbeth’s first guardian and Mikael’s boss both play huge parts in the book in adding dimension to the protagonists, but in the film they do not feature at all. Still, Oplev does certain effective things with the film, such as showing the beautiful scenery of Sweden (one suspects the Swedish tourist board may have been involved at a few points in its creation) as well as having it all filmed in the country’s native language. Oplev also introduces new scenes to tie in with the parts of the story that become jagged due to the loss of minor characters. This is done very effectively so the film adaptation feels closer to ‘Lord of the Rings’ in continuity rather than ‘Harry Potter’. However the great aesthetics don’t counter-balance the slight loss in depth that has occurred due to the editing and alterations.
Overall the film is very good: dark, tense and rewarding. Its a good adaptation of the book and perfect for those who want to experience the story telling of Larsson, but don’t have the time to read the novel. Tragically, our American cousins’ dislike of subtitled films meant that it only grossed $10 million. Predictably, a Hollywood version is on the way. It remains to be seen whether Rooney Mara will be able to pull off unconventional Lisbeth Salander, certainly not if the studio bosses have any creative input. So before the American rehashes grace our theatres, it would be best to check out the original Swedish version on DVD and its sequel, ‘The Girl who Played with Fire’.
