In a New York City subway, there are a number of ubiquities: the rats that scamper and scurry close to your feet, reminding you that if all 40 million of them ever chose to form a union and revolt, you would be in a bubonic heaven; garbage canisters that overflow and become less a receptacle and more a rubbish-Jenga that entices each commuter to gently lay one more bit of trash on top to challenge the bounds of gravity (whatever that is); the panhandlers who all have a variation of the same lament, including but not limited to: a fire in their building, AIDS, more than one child with another on the way, recovery from addiction, being a disenfranchised veteran. And while these are all sympathy-worthy plights, it is truly amazing how many Vietnam veterans I encounter who are under thirty. Our government must have been using them and their tiny finger to clean the inside of artillery cannons.
However, as years in New York flit by with the alacrity of a West Side Highway hooker, these ubiquities become part of the scenery and lend to entertaining moments when tourists encounter these phenomena, squealing when a rat’s body oozes from a quarter-sized hole that he is able to fit his snout through, skirting in a circuitous route around the garbage cans to avoid the potential collapse while craning their necks to admire its balanced architecture, sympathizing with the blighted denizens seeking a handout and smiling as they now have a story that involves slumming.
The interconnectedness of New York flavor and those who travel among the city is the reason why it’s so damn impossible to leave this island. However, in the last three years, a series of plagues has entered the subway as persistent eyesores. You can’t help but be intrigued, but you dread indulging for fear that you might waste your time in the venture, or worse, enjoy it.
Like a crinkled Combos bag that smites the waters carrying soda bottles, daily newspaper sections and prophylactics in its wake betwixt the train tracks, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo has turned them to blood. And this water has brought forth The Girl Who Played With Fire abundantly, which has gone up and come into thine houses, and into thy bedchamber, and upon they bed. And to close the trilogy, driving commuters into further eyesore-bondage, publishers have sent swarms of The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest upon us and upon our people and into our houses.
Twilight, they are not, but they have certainly infiltrated a number of peacoat pockets and emerge regularly from satchels and messenger bags. However, the afflicted are not few, and I do not stand apart from them. Ladies and gentlemen, {stands up}, my name is Dustin, and I am Larssonist – though I have only read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, partially out of curiosity, partially out of boredom, in the end, I have resisted the temptation to indulge in the two sequels because the first installment was quite flabbergasting.
However, the poster for the Swedish film version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is intriguing, so I decided to indulge in hopes that the movie would salvage the better parts of the novel and weave them together cohesively to produce a film rooted in mystery and suspense. To my surprise, it succeeded – for the most part.
The longwindedness of the novel is avoided by the standard, two-hour movie. Likewise, the film doesn’t overindulge in exposition to develop Mikael Blomkvist, a journalist who has been convicted of libel and sentenced to three months in jail. Prior to his jail sentence, Blomkvist is also hired by Henrik Vanger, the patriarch of the Vanger family, who – as he has come to terms with his own mortality – is trying to uncover the mystery of his niece, Harriet Vanger (Ewa Froling), who disappeared forty years prior. Instead, the conflict between Blomkvist and Wennerstrom (Blomkvist’s accuser), is downplayed and becomes a footnote, which allows director Niels Arden Oplev to focus on the title character, Lisabeth Salander (Noomi Rapace).
Aside from being a rather attractive, leather clad, dark hair, blue-eyed girl with a number of tattoos and piercings, she is the most intriguing character in that she says little throughout the film, but Rapace’s acting conveys the calculating intelligence hiding behind Salander’s eyes. As a ward of the state, Salander is monitored by Nils Bjurman, a sadistic parole officer who controls her finances, doling out Kroners in exchange for fellatio or sodomy, and it is in this “arrangement” that Saldander’s methodical stratagems emerge: a stun gun in hand, she incapacitates Bjurman, fastens pullies around his wrists and ankles, stretching him diagonally across the living room floor while forcing him to watch a video in which he ties up and rapes Salander – a video that she procured on a hidden camera during their second encounter.
While both the rape scene and Bjurman’s forced voyeurism are rather visceral in the cold colors of the room and the unnerving soundtrack that drowns out the majority of the Salander’s screams and Bjurman’s moans, though the expressions on their faces convey the physical and mental anguish of both scenes, a simple shot of Salander smoking cigarettes is most powerful. As the video begins, Salander tells Bjurman to enjoy the next two hours (my apologies, I don’t speak Swedish, or there would be an exact quote) and exits the room, parking herself on a couch, lighting a cigarette with the volume of the video playing in the background. The smoke is slowly inhaled and exhaled, and after a groan that signifies Bjurman’s raptuse, the scene cuts to a full ashtray, signifying the end of two hours – a two hours in which Salander has had her share of tobacco and nicotine, but also subjected herself to the sounds of her own agony and the moans of her assailant’s pleasure, reliving a painful two hours to inflict her own vengeance on her attacker. As opposed to glorifying this scene, Oplev creates suspense and gruesomeness through omission, a creative tactic often lost in the shuffle of gore-filled films that substitute corn syrup for substance.
Given the coldness and eeriness of Salander’s character, it’s no wonder that David Fincher signed on to direct the American version of this film, and given his previous works, he can certainly indulge in the coldness of the story. The only thing I ask is that he reconfigures the text slightly and fixes the major flaw that exists in both the novel and the Oplev’s version.
Unfortunately, this flaw is not only a major sticking point in terms of storytelling, but it is also the moment of the story that ultimately leads Blomkvist and Salander to the murderer. Admittedly, Oplev and the screenwriters Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg do a better job fashioning this moment than Larsson, the moment is still rather precarious. In short, Blomkvist is sifting through photographs taken forty years ago on Children’s Day, one in which Harriet was in attendance. In sequential photos, Blomkvist notices that Harriet’s expression changes, she is frightened, and the logical conclusion is that whomever she saw is the one who is possibly responsible for the murder. Fine thus far, yes? Agreed. In the same photograph, Blomkvist notices that two people standing behind Harriet have a camera and are snapping a photo in the same general direction that Harriet’s frightened eyes are fixed. Thus, they might have evidence of the killer as well. Still logical, yes? Sure.
Subsequently, Blomkvist travels to Bjursele – a destination in the book determined by an illogical, “hey, perhaps my friend knows a friend who knows a friend whose cousin once worked with that young woman’s brother’s cousin’s former roommate scenario” – with photographs in hand. Thankfully, this peripatetic journey is obviated in the film: sans volume, Oplev shows us Blomkvist knocking on the door of a business, showing a worker the photographs. The worker then points off in the distance, and in the next scene, Blomkvist is sitting at the kitchen table of the woman snapping picture in the same photograph as Harriet. Still logical? … We’ve made quite the leap here. Perhaps Oplev sensed the ridiculousness of this possibility, so he chose to elide the process and just put Blomkvist at the kitchen table; however, how Blomkvist got inside, or even to the door, needs to be examined in two parts.
Essentially, the viewer is supposed to believe the picture of a young woman in a forty year old photo will automatically be recognized by a factory worker, who will then be able to direct Blomkvist to the woman’s house. This logic is rather sticky in that we age, and the odds that the young woman – who was not even the focus of the photograph, which would probably make the image a bit blurry – looks similar enough to her self after forty years are slim.
Now, perhaps the man at the factory has known this woman for forty years. Fair enough; I’ll bite for a moment, and I will even just assume that the older woman had no problem letting a stranger in to her home for no apparent reason other than … he’s writing a novel about the Vanger family? But, old people are friendly, yes? So, I’ll even bite on that one, though this cracker is covered in alum.
However, the next step crumbles this rickety bridge into the valley. While having coffee and a snack with the older woman, Blomkvist brings up the photograph and asks if she remembers taking photos that day. Clearly she does because she and her late husband were on their honeymoon. (Coincidence, you are a blessing!). Subsequently, he asks if she still has those photos, and miraculously, she does! And the negatives. Forty years later. Perhaps I lack the nostalgic bone that others have. Perhaps I think Larsson sat at his computer while writing this novel and said “Well, shit! I’m four hundred pages in and don’t want to turn back. If vampires can be vegetarian and sparkle, anything is possible,” though highly improbable.
A grandly illogical plot point aside, the movie is shot with cold, stunning direction, creating suspense and utilizing the actors’ slight movement and expressions to fashion a tale of intrigue.
DYL MAG Score: 7
