a direct translation from the original Swedish

Film On to the Swedish film sequel, The Girl Who Played with Fire. Leaving aside the sexual content which some viewers might still find disturbing, with the exception of one particularly titillating scene, here's what I thought went right, or at least what I thought directly after watching it this afternoon:

#1: Naomi Rapace who plays "goth" computer hacker Lisbeth is still a star in the making and this film is probably more entertaining because it’s her story right the way through, even if that story is a Swedish version of The Fugitive. The sense of danger which accompanies her presence in most scenes raises the film beyond its more obvious tv origins. As the revelations about Lisbeth’s past tumble out, it makes her performance across the two films even more impressive since it was all implicit in performance in The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.

#2: The title makes better sense this time (because it’s a direct translation from the original Swedish) and there’s a scene were we can see the visceral nature of fire as the camera lingers on a blaze, it’s given the symbolic importance that a director like Vincent Ward or Cédric Klapisch would be pleased with. Of course, in a crime thriller such symbolism recedes in importance, but this is a “film” which is happier in its own skin as a noir b-movie (useful coincidences and emphatic intercutting included) unlike the first piece which took material which seemed better suited to this style and approached it like, well, a truly evil Midsummer Murders.

#3: It’s just the right length as a "film" and it's less obvious as to where the extra material had been cut out for the running time. The shift from the first to the second episode of the original television version is less obvious and my guess is that what we have here is the lions share of the second with much of the time spent by a young journalist in researching his article and the police side of an investigation were both casualties. It also ends rather abruptly in a nice 70s manner, which suggests it has lost a wrap up scene.

#4: It's much better structured at least in terms of character. By keeping the two leads apart for the whole film, it makes each of them seem as prominent as the other, though obviously Blomkvist spends most of his time filling in back story and explaining some of Lisbeth’s actions so actually on this occasion Lisbeth keeps most of her narrative agency. The Empire Strikes Back looms large for various reasons. It also just about passes The Bechdel Test unless there’s a special sub-clause rooted in the queer theory branch of film studies.

#5: It's better structured its story development, with most information hard fought for and with a sense of peril. Over and over again when the investigation reaches a stand-still, Lisbeth mostly leaves the comfort of cyberspace and has to physically follow the trail of information geographically. It shares plenty of elements with the Sandra Bullock headliner The Net, though Lisbeth is far more pro-active in hitting against the force that done wrong her.

#6: It’ll be interesting to see how the film translates as a US remake, since it’s difficult to see Daniel Craig spending quite so much time sitting around looking at files and chatting with witnesses. I can see at least one character whose participation will be reduced to give Craig one decent action sequence since that’s what the audience will be expecting; the Swedish versions are still generally perceived to be art house, whereas the US version is very much a Hollywood genre production.

I appreciate that this is another lazy list and not some fully formed film criticism, but unlike Philip French who as ever manages to spoil the first three quarters of the run time in the space of a paragraph (and mention EM Forster), I’ve decided that it’s the kind of work which needs to be experienced with as little foreknowledge as possible. I’ve probably given too much away already. Reading through the comments and reviews elsewhere, there’s as wide a spectrum of opinion for this as Inception from the very kind to the downright hostile. Though the praise for Naomi Rapace is pretty universal.

The next film is out in November followed presumably by another blu-ray. After that, the smart marketing idea would be for a release of the longer Swedish Millenium television series with English subtitles either for broadcast on BBC Four or the home market or both. Certainly they’re the version I’ll be waiting for, to see if the lesions in narrative of the first film are explained and what the extra hours runtime in the second is filled with. Like the six-hour version of Das Boot, the two can exist separately; but I suspect that once I’ve seen the longer version, these cinema editions will seem less important somehow.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo et al were made for television

Film On to the Swedish film, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Leaving aside the sexual content which some viewers might find disturbing, here's what I thought went wrong, or at least what I thought directly after watching it the other afternoon:

#1: Naomi Rapace who plays "goth" computer hacker Lisbeth is a star in the making. But without her presence the film would be about as impressive as an average episode of Midsummer Murders (as opposed to a superior episode obviously). She has that rare ability to appear vulnerable and hard as nails at the same time, and reflect a depth of characterisation that isn't in the script. When she's not on screen, the film falls over.

#2: For a film called "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo" it makes nothing of Lisbeth's tattoo. A director like Wong Kar Wai or Peter Greenaway would have made it symbolically important. I appreciate that as a crime thriller such symbolism recedes in importance, but across its two and half hour duration Blomkvist doesn't even bring it up in conversation.

#3: As Bradshaw says, it's too long.

#4: It's poorly structured at least in terms of character. For the first hour and a quarter, Blomkvist and Lisbeth are parallel protagonist with their own goals and whatnot. Then as soon as they meet, Lisbeth recedes into the background and almost all of her scenes are told from Blomkvist's POV.

This is typical in film -- the male protagonist always ultimately "steals" the narrative agency from the female even if there are two names on the poster. From then on, with the exception of two scenes, the rest of the story is Blomkvist's and Lisbeth slips in and out of view. Yuk.

Apparently the book is much better structured, sharing the story out right to the end, which made me wonder if the film makers shouldn't have just picked Blomkvist or Lisbeth as the POV character from the start. It also might have made for a shorter film. Oh and it fails The Bechdel Test. A lot.

#5: It's poorly structured its story development, turning deus ex machina into an art form. Over and over again the investigation reaches a stand-still and then Lisbeth will magic the necessary from her computer leading to the next set piece and crucially without irony.

#6: This film would be better if either Max von Sydow or Stellan Skarsgård were in it and it was directed by David Fincher.

Search around online to see if anyone else agreed with me, I stumbled upon this translated Swedish wikipedia page, which explains that the film and its sequels were turned into a tv mini-series with more footage extrapolating out certain things.

But I think something has been lost in translation because Variety suggests instead that The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo et al were made for television with a view to the big screen before ultimately turning up on television anyway. Which of course explains rather a lot:

#1: The film would be about as impressive as an average episode of Midsummer Murders because it was shot for television initially.

#2: The Swedish title translates as "Men Who Hate Women" which has more relevance to the story than tattoos, obviously. It's also a touch less commercial which is presumably why it was changed for the translated book release and so the film. No wonder it fails The Bechdel Test.

#3: It's too long because it's two two hour tv episodes stitched together then edited down to the most important elements.  Nearly 110 mins of footage across the trilogy have been lost in the theatrical versions, about 36 mins per film. 

#4: It's structured around two tv episodes. Perhaps in the tv version, the parallel structure does continue into the second half but because Lisbeth's story is mainly character driven and Blomkvist's is plot driven and because of the needs of the genre, most of her second half character beats were lost in the theatrical version.

#5: Which might also mean that the investigative information which seems to drop in Blomkvist's lap later in the film was hard fought for otherwise. But again, to keep the film shorter such things as logic were lost in favour of creepy torture etc.

#6: I've just discovered that both Sydow and Skarsgård are both in the remake/US adaptation of the novel. Which is directed by David Fincher.

Nevertheless, I still feel like I did in the mid-80s when I realised that Battlestar Galactica was made for television and released at the cinema in the UK in the wake of Star Wars.