WINTER OF DISCONTENT: The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

Man, this one started unpromisingly! Imagine you’re the writer of a ridiculously successive pair of novels featuring an iconic, kick-ass heroine. You sit down to start work on volume three. What do you do: have your iconic, kick-ass heroine taking the fight to the various individuals who have conspired against her throughout her life, or have her laid up in a hospital bed while a rumpled middle-aged reporter pursues the same kind of plodding investigation he undertook in the previous books?

Me, I’d have gone with the former. Larsson – and director Daniel Alfredson – opt for the latter. Thus, the first half of ‘The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest’ has Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) even more backgrounded than in the previous instalments, recovering in hospital prior as the public prosecutor puts together a case against her courtesy of those pesky fingerprints on Bjurman’s gun from ‘The Girl who Played with Fire’, while Mikael Blomqvist (Michael Nyqvist) unravels an ever-wider-reaching conspiracy against her.

The next problem is that the nature of the aforementioned conspiracy is detailed in endlessly boring scenes of old men in suits sitting around in blandly anonymous rooms talking in hushed tones. Imagine a third-rate John le Carre homage delivered with all the dynamism of a party political broadcast and that’s basically how the first half of ‘The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest’ plays out.

A double-assassination attempt at the hospital and some mounting pressure against the staff at Millennium (Blomkvist is racing against time to publish a special edition blowing the lid off it all before the powers that be can have Lisbeth sectioned again) enliven things slightly, but the absence of Salander as a pro-active character drains the life out of the proceedings.

As the second half got underway, with the trial looming, I could feel my will to live evaporating. Full disclosure: with the exception of a couple of Sidney Lumet films, I can’t stand courtroom dramas. By their very nature, they make for a static and visually uninteresting drama.

My surprise was palpable, then, when things pepped up no end, the legal shenanigans juxtaposed with an official investigation against the conspirators. The courtroom scenes, while betraying an absolute lack of realism (so much new and illegally obtained evidence introduced at the last minute without the judge batting an eyelid? are they really that liberal in Sweden?), benefit from Salander’s powers of photographic and verbatim recall. Her reduction of the prosecutor to bamboozled idiot is beautiful to behold, as is the arrest of a key prosecution witness, hauled out of court on child pornography charges.

A coda wrapping up the almost obligatory loose end finally gives Salander the chance to kick out the jambs in the action stakes. All told, though, ‘The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest’ is as big a plod as it’s immediate predecessor, and a not a patch on the watchable (but hugely overrated) ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’. Here’s to David Fincher giving things a shot in the arm!

WINTER OF DISCONTENT: The Girl who Played with Fire

The only instalment of the trilogy whose English title is anywhere near an accurate translation from the Swedish, ‘The Girl who Played with Fire’ is even more disappointing than its predecessor in backgrounding the fascinating Lisbeth Salander (played to perfection by Noomi Rapace) in favour of a plodding journalistic investigation undertaken by the hangdog Mikael Blomqvist (Michael Nyqvist). It also disappoints in that Daniel Alfredson’s direction isn’t a patch on Niels Arden Oplev’s and the entire production betrays its made-for-TV roots so shabbily that it makes ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ look like ‘Lawrence of Arabia’.

The next problem requires me to hoist the jolly SPOILER ALERT for a paragraph.

‘Dragon Tattoo’ ended with the much-misused Lisbeth fiscally benefiting from the downfall of Blomqvist’s corporate nemesis and sunning herself in the Caribbean on the proceeds. Which, after all the shit she’d gone through, seemed only fair (if a tad deus ex machina-ish). Thus ‘Played with Fire’ opens with some extended and not particularly interesting business regarding her return to Stockholm, her acquisition of property, and her loaning out of an apartment to a lesbian entrepreneur who owns a sex shop (cue graphic and narratively pointless – but, if I’m being honest – still very watchable girl-girl scene). She also checks up on the loathsome Nils Bjurman (Peter Andersson) in a tortuously contrived sequence, the only purpose of which is to get her prints on a gun.

(Lower the jolly SPOILER, first mate!)

Meanwhile, Millennium magazine have hired wannabe crusading journalist Dag Svensson (Hans Christian Thulin) who wants to blow the lid on a prostitution ring uncovered by his girlfriend Mia (Jennie Silfverhjelm) whilst researching her thesis. Dag and Mia are trying to track down the shadowy “Zala”, reputed to be the sex trade kingpin; Blomqvist throws in his tuppence-ha’penny worth by confronting some of the men who have availed themselves of Zala’s service.

No sooner does Blomqvist discover a link to Lisbeth than Dag and Mia are murdered. Blomqvist hurriedly tries to make contact with Lisbeth, unaware that their parallel courses are about to … yadda yadda yadda, blah blah blah.

‘Played with Fire’ desultorily sketches out two narrative arcs that are so depressingly derivative that it’s almost impossible to care by the time the overwrought and laughably ludicrous finale roles around. (How ludicrous? Imagine the “lonely grave of Paula Schultz” sequence from ‘Kill Bill Vol 2’ redone without Tarantino’s knowing sense of irony, throw in a Bond villain type cipher who’s blond, Aryan, built like a brick shithouse and incapable of feeling pain, then have Blomqvist walk manfully into the middle of the whole farrago as if he were Clint Eastwood.)

If ‘ Dragon Tattoo’ was little more than bad Agatha Christie with rape scenes, then the touchstone for ‘Played with Fire’ is more along the lines of ‘The Empire Strikes Back’. If I’m spoiling anything by referring to this as the “Lisbeth, I am your father” episode, then I make no apologies whatsoever. There is one standout scene, dealing with Lisbeth’s clinical take-down of a couple of bikers, and it’s pretty cool to watch Rapace capitalizing on the victim-turned-angel-of-vengeance personification of Salander from the first movie and turn her into an authentic kick-ass action heroine.

That said, I’m not holding out much hope for ‘The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest’.

WINTER OF DISCONTENT: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

I have an inverse-ratio reaction to hype. The more the masses are clamouring to read something or watch something, the less my inclination to approach that work. Mainly it’s because I recognize my own capacity for disappointment, partly because I’d rather wait till all the fuss is died down, and not a little bit because I’m because a contrary old bugger.

I steered clear of Stieg Larsson’s ‘Millennium’ trilogy while it was pitching its tripartite tent on the higher slopes of the Times bestseller list and beating off all competition with a stick. I’d heard various opinions, from “riveting if not particularly subtle thrillers” to “second-rate Agatha Christie with some nasty anal rape”. I still haven’t approached a single volume.

The film versions bypassed me on the big screen. They were truncations of Swedish TV productions, each three-hour adaptation shorn of about forty minutes’ for its big screen release to conform to a more commercial running time. I had it on good authority that if you weren’t familiar with the books, you’d be in for a lot of head scratching.

Then the trilogy in its uncut nine-hour epicness hit the shelves in a stupidly cheap box set and – finally – curiosity got the better of me.

The title is something of a misnomer*, indicating that Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) – she of the oriental-themed ink-work – is the protagonist. Actually, she’s pretty much second fiddle (although a pretty bloody essential second fiddle, particularly in the last act) to Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), a crusading journalist for radical magazine Millennium who, as the story starts, is facing a three-month custodial sentence after a major corporation take him to court over an article. It soon becomes apparent that Blomkvist was set up.

With six months until he has to serve his sentence, Blomkvist accepts an assignment from Henrik Vanger (Sven-Bertil Taube), the octogenarian senior partner in a major manufacturing company. Vanger wants him to investigate the disappearance, forty years ago, of his niece. He is convinced she was murdered and that one of his family is the killer.

Salander, initially hired by the corporation responsible for prosecuting Blomkvist to hack him, becomes drawn to his investigation. She has a troubled background, having torched her abusive father as a girl (the backstory is a tad sketchy, though the image of a man in flames plunging out of a BMW is certainly memorable!) and is currently paroled under the supervision of a “guardian”. This, ahem, “gentleman” is Nils Bjurman (Peter Andersson), a controlling sadist who blackmails her into sexual services, then assaults and anally rapes her. Salander’s revenge on him, somewhere around the mid-point, is a textbook exercise in “an eye for an eye”. Or in this case a – … actually, I’ll just let you find out for yourselves.

The “eye for an eye” aesthetic is apposite, since Salander twigs to a Biblical clue in Blomkvist’s investigation and the two become unlikely allies. Once again, Blomkvist finds himself up against corruption in big business, ties to Sweden’s pre-war Nazi sympathy movement, and a sadistic antagonist with a Fritzl-like prison/torture chamber basement conversion.

It’s to director Niels Arden Oplev’s credit that he doesn’t let this miasma of fascism, corruption, degeneracy and misogyny descend into the lurid depths it could so easily have plumbed. In fact, the thing that struck me most about ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ was its portrayal of evil as something bland and almost desultory. There’s nothing gothic or grotesque about the villain’s basement, even when he opens a cabinet the inner surfaces of which are decorated with photographs of his victims at point of expiration. Au contraire, it’s a utilitarian and rather mundane set-up, as if Ikea had designed a range for the psychopathic rapist on a budget.

The made-for-TV origins of the project leave a few other scenes looking unintentionally bland, as well (which is why I’m looking forward to seeing what a great visual stylistic like David Fincher will do with the remake), with only Blomkvist and Salander’s connect-the-dots dash around Sweden as they revisit old murder scenes and clues fall into place, breaking out into a truly cinematic sequence.

It’s a curious piece of work, all told, and I’m tempted to approach the books now, just to see if the same dichotomy is present. There’s a sense that a real socio-political statement on twentieth century Sweden is being striven for – one, moreover, that’s wrapped up in an indictment of misogyny – and yet the plot points, narrative tropes and dramatic set-pieces employed to reach it are pure pulpy hokum.

Still, it benefits from solid performances all round, with Nyqvist convincingly essaying a world-weary but idealistic protagonist and Rapace – in her breakout role – fucking owning the film as the tattoo’d, leather-jacketed, studded-collar-wearing angel of vengeance that is Lisbeth Salander. A heroine of our vicious times.

*Both book and film in their indigenous language go by the title ‘Men Who HateWomen’.

Together

Posted as part of Operation 101010
Category: impulse buys / In category: 8 of 10 / Overall: 55 of 100

Why buy?

Part of the Lukas Moodysson box set.

The expectation

An acutely observed, po-faced bit of satire.

The actuality

I had a productive and engaging day at work today. I mention this for a reason.

Usually, my working day is eight hours of ennui which I make it through purely by dwelling on whatever movie I watched last and composing a review in my head, structuring it, shaping it, figuring out a good opening sentence or paragraph, a hook that leads into the rest of the article; then fleshing it out, developing it, challenging myself to come up with trenchant observations or pithy remarks. Eight hours of marking time and wanting to be anywhere other than at my desk, at the end of which I amble home, fix something to eat, spend some quality time with Mrs Agitation, then flip on the computer and transcribe the review from my head into Word.

Today, I didn’t have that luxury. Today, I actually enjoyed my job, took satisfaction in my endeavours and saw a positive result. As a result of which, I’m staring at a screen that is blank except for 190 non-film-related words and cursing my employers for putting me in a position whereby I haven’t had the opportunity to marshal my thoughts on ‘Together’.

So, fumbling my way into this write-up, I guess there’s two immediate, superficial approaches. One is to say: ‘Together’ is about a maltreated housewife, Elisabeth (Lisa Lindgren), who walks out on her temperamental husband Rolf (Michael Nyqvist) and seeks shelter at Tilsammens (Swedish for “together”), the hippie commune run by her milquetoast brother Göran (Gustaf Hammarsten). Suburbanite Elisabeth and her young children experience a culture clash with their socialist, vegan, pro-feminist, politically active hosts, while the remorseful Rolf tries to mend his ways and rebuild bridges with his family. Hilarity ensues.

The other is to say: Göran is trying maintain an open relationship with the dipsomaniac and emotionally infantile Lena (Anja Lundkvist) while keeping the peace in a settlement full of well-meaning but politically very different drop-outs, from politically aware but terminally naïve Erik (Olle Sarri) – whom Lena moons after – to the openly gay and painfully angst-ridden Klas (Shanti Roney) by way of recently estranged couple Lasse (Ola Rapace) and Anna (Jessica Liedberg). Lasse baits Erik while fending off (or maybe not) Klas’s advances, while bridling at the fact that Anna has embraced lesbianism for what he sees as political rather than sexual, romantic or emotional reasons. Into this melting pot of counter-culture comes suburban housewife Elisabeth. The results are funny, poignant and life-changing.

Both of these descriptions, never mind that they tick the required boxes, are essentially wrong. The first makes ‘Together’ sound like a smug but ultimately schmaltzy culture-clash comedy. The second comes on like a Robert Altman ensemble piece shot through with a bleatingly liberal indie sensibility. The first sounds plotless, the second overplotted. Neither come anywhere close to capturing the charm, wit, intelligence, attention to detail and investment in character and character development that imbues virtually every frame of ‘Together’.

In lesser hands, the characters could have been ciphers. Clichés. Stereotypes. Moodysson, even when painting in the boldest strokes, draws impeccably nuanced performances from his cast, not one performer putting a foot wrong. His script is just as subtle. A Hollywood comedy utilising this scenario would pound the audience into brain-damage with facile life lessons and blatantly manipulative moralising. Moodysson, on the other hand, simply lets his characters interact and observes how they rub off on each other. He never makes fun of their foibles (in fact, their interaction is niftily juxtaposed with the emotional sterility of the disapproving curtain-twitchers who live opposite the commune), but simply presents them as human beings. Flawed, sometimes foolish, but never less than human.

Nor does he ever lose sight of the potential of wry humour as a comment on the human condition. Consider the scene where one of the aforesaid curtain-twitchers spies through binoculars on Anna and Elisabeth swaying drunkenly in what he perceives as a seductive dance; brushing off his wife’s overtures to join him on the sofa, he claims that he’s going to the basement to do some woodwork; downstairs, he takes a wank mag from underneath his bench, seizes a hammer and bashes away at a non-existent project as he fumbles at his belt. Moodysson cuts to his wife, knitting metronomically, her eyes rolling as the hammering becomes more and more frenzied. Aesthetically, this is Robin Askwith territory; yet Moodysson’s deadpan approach to the material renders it comedy gold.

From this throwaway scene, Moodysson develops a beautifully understated subplot regarding the tentative romance that develops between Elisabeth’s socially inept daughter and the curtain-twitchers’ overweight and nerdy son. As he did in ‘Fucking Åmål’, Moodysson is sensitive, responsible and empathetic in his depiction of children sidelined by their peers and rejected as uncool. He refuses to condescend or poke fun.

The non-judgementalism extends to the adults in the cast. Many a director would pitch Rolf as the villain of the piece, particularly when he comes into the sphere of influence of one Birger Andersson (Sten Ljunggren), the fuck-up anti-hero of ‘Talk’. At this point, having seen ‘Talk’, I went all queasy, imagining that Moodysson had set the narrative on course towards a savage and unpalatable ending.

Again, my bad on making snap judgements. Against all the odds – ie. the memories of anyone who’s ever seen ‘Talk’ and winced at the gallows-humour ending – Moodysson redeems Birger as a man who just wants to do the right thing. His intensity and insistence initially comes across as creepy, but there’s a moment late in the film where, to his own discomfort and knowing that he’ll be overlooked and left alone, he deliberately and gallantly removes himself from the equation the better to allow Rolf, a man he barely knows, a shot at reconciliation. Like so much of ‘Together’, it’s an unforced, candidly observed moment which proves that Moodysson’s characters are capable of demonstrating their best even if the vagaries of life have compromised and wrongfooted them.

‘Together’ is sublime. It is the loveliest and most unexpected cinematic discovery I’ve made this year.