by Brett Warner
The Girl Who Played With Fire – the second film in the series based on Stieg Larsson’s best-selling “Milennium” Trilogy – arrived in stores on DVD and Blu-Ray this week. The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets’ Nest will be in select theaters this Friday, though you’re unlikely to hear much about it because the name on everybody’s lips is not Swedish director Daniel Alfredson, or even the late Mr. Larsson himself – it’s David Fincher. The Fight Club and Seven auteur is currently filming a big-budget, Hollywood remake of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo with young actor Rooney Mara (aka Mark Zuckerberg’s fabricated girlfriend in The Social Network) replacing Swedish actress Noomi Rapace in the role of Lisbeth Salander, valued Hot Topic customer and computer hacker extraordinaire. With the films finally seeing a stateside release and the books available at every book store, grocery store, and drug store in the country, it begs the question: Why do we need this? Along with this year’s Let Me In, why does the world need an American remake based on a fantastic film based on a very readable book? Does the same imperialist, We’re Number One mentality that informs our country’s foreign policy also dictate the movies we produce, or are we simply just as dumb as the big studio producers seem to think we are?
Fans of CSI and NCIS with a first grade or higher reading level might be surprised to learn that the Swedish films are very well produced and extremely watchable. As in the novels, we first meet our hero Lisbeth Salander working for Milton Security, keeping an eye on and hacking the computer of notorious liberal journalist Mikael Blomkvist. A writer for the fictional Millennium magazine (Sweden’s answer to WikiLeaks), Blomvkist is facing jail time over libel charges against billionaire industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström. Lisbeth – a socially stilted, intensely private young woman that many readers have diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome – was institutionalized as a child after firebombing her abusive father in his car. At the mercy of her legal guardian (a perverted lawyer named Nils Bjurman), Lisbeth is raped twice before taking matters into her own hands: with an incriminating video tape, she blackmails and then tortures her former captor, tattooing the phrase “I am a sadist pig and a rapist” across his chest, promising swift retribution should he contact the authorities or attempt to have the ink removed. She teams up with Blomkvist to solve the forty year old murder of another industry tycoon’s niece and, in the midst of his jail term, helps the defamed journalist to successfully incriminate Wennerström and reclaim his reputation.
The Girl Who Played With Fire begins shortly after the first novel/film. Lisbeth is now living abroad and keeping a typically low profile. Back at Millennium, a young investigative journalist and his criminologist girlfriend have uncovered a shocking human trafficking ring between Russia and Sweden involving several high-placed members of the local police and government. On the eve of publishing their findings, the two are brutally murdered with a gun covered with Lisbeth’s fingerprints. On the run and pursuing the traffickers herself, Lisbeth relies on the help of Blomkvist to prove her innocence before the police – or the dangerous gangster known only as “Zala” – get to her first.
A departure from the first film’s more subdued, classic murder mystery format, The Girl Who Played With Fire is a fast-paced, densely structured thriller expertly filmed by Mr. Alfredson, who replaced Dragon Tattoo director Niels Arden Oplev with captivating results. The visuals pop, the car chases are faster, and the action hits harder – regardless, a louder and faster American remake can’t be far away. The source novels, published posthumously after real-life investigative journalist Stieg Larsson’s mysterious death, have sold almost 30 million copies world-wide, yet the powers that be in Hollywood seem unwilling to allow Sweden to take all the credit for Larsson’s anti-misogynist thrillers. Is it simply a business opportunity that drives these American versions (i.e. this made a lot of money, we should do our own), or is there some underlying attitude we have against foreign films and non-Americanized pop culture in general?
It feels like the greater public in this country only choose to incorporate and appreciate world culture when it’s trendy, a self-congratulatory pat on the back for having such broad interests. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon was lavished with praise in 2000, though good luck asking the average guy or girl on the street to name a Chinese language film from the last ten years. The attitude isn’t film-specific either. How many people listened to Algerian raï music before Sting’s “Desert Rose,” or knew any Celtic before they heard Enya in a car commercial? Hidden behind every magazine cover and tucked into the moral of every cookie cutter romantic comedy we produce is this idealized sense of comfort – that we Americans like to surround ourselves with our own culture and values and assimilate any outside material only when it’s profitable or self-serving.
David Fincher will no doubt film a fantastic retelling of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Rooney Mara’s Lisbeth Salander will have the same steely gaze, the same piercings, and the same misogyny-crushing boots. The film will match or even expand upon the Swedish version’s depiction of violence against women and corporate greed. Two Americanized sequels will surely follow. Yet, as any high school or college literature professor will tell you, authorial intent is always important. The intent of Fincher’s remake seems to boil down to this: Americans like American stuff, and the world at large (we like to think, anyway) prefers our stuff, too. Truth is, the rest of the world has been in love with Lisbeth Salander and her adventures for years now – it must just drive Hollywood crazy that an unassuming Scandinavian country (previously responsible for a culinary Muppet and an especially tasty meatball) came up with something they couldn’t: a decent action film.
The Girl Who Played with Fire is available on DVD/Blu-Ray now. It is rated R for rape, nudity, violence, language, and pervasive English subtitles.
