THE GIRL WHO KICKED THE HORNET'S NEST

The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest on film suffers from many of the same problems it did as a novel: a need to bring so many plot strands and so much historical background together it sometimes flounders on its own exposition. Of course it's far easier to do in the book, because you have the time, and in reducing the book to a flowing thriller, particularly one in which the main character is hospital bed-ridden for much of time, the film-makers have had to lose a lot. In fact, they appear to take as given that their audience has either read the trilogy or at least seen the previous film, The Girl Who Played With Fire, which was made by the same team and basically appears to have been conceived as one long mini-series, re-edited into two feature films.

I said as much when I reviewed Girl Who Played (link to that here) back in August, after reviewing it for The Strand, that it appeared to be scaled for the smaller screen, and I think viewing the sequel confirms that. The first film, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, was conceived by the different team of film-makers as a much more a self-contained story, with the thriller plot foregrounded and much of the rest left behind, but in those terms it worked, and the second-third films of the trilogy may be considered almost as stand-alone.

The biggest cut, of course, is the background into the secret intelligence group that ran Lisbeth Salander's father and others and initated its own political policies within the Swedish government. Larsson approached issues which resonate in Swedish political history, but which aren't really relevant to the basic Salander plot, so out they go in this film. I have commented many times on the similarity of Larsson's trilogy to The Count Of Monte Cristo, and it's here that the comparison is most clear--like Edmond Dantes, Lisbeth is imprisoned for knowledge which is is unaware she has, to protect people she doesn't know she threatens. That Mikke Blomqvist becomes her Abbe puts a slightly different twist on their relationship.

Of course much else is lost--if you hadn't seen the second film you would not even have caught the reference to Erika Berger's being married, which would explain why the spies might think photographs of her and Mikke were compromising. The subplot with her being offered a newspaper editor's job disappeared, instead Lena Endre is left yet again playing the authority figure who acts as a brake or rein on a more committed professional. That she's somewhat too old for the role makes her more of a mother-figure and less a sometimes-romantic partner, but she is so good an actress she carries it off.

Yet another of the novels' unlikely romances for Mikke is left behind, and the story doesn't suffer for that, and again there are only cameo appearances for the cop Bublanski, one of the novel's more interesting characters, and for Armanskij, whose security skills figure heavily on the page. There are so many characters within the intelligence, legal, and police world's that it is hard to keep track of just exactly who is who, and what they did, which is also a problem which having read the book helps solve.

Much of Salander's internet activity from her hospital bed is condensed, which is not a huge loss, but what is underplayed the most is the courtroom. Lisbeth's appearance, back in full punk regalia, is a nice set-piece, but the whole dynamic of the court, complete with a mystifying performance by the chief judge, who keeps nodding and making faces which are supposed to indicate either agreement or disagreement. Of course, given the Swedish justice system's behaviour in the current Assange case, it's not surprising they seem to bend over for the prosecution until they can't. Still, the condensing of the case for the screen loses much of the nuance, and what is lft in the trial is both obvious from a plot summary and questionable from a legal procedural one! The courtroom is central to Larsson's story, however--as you can see from the Swedish film poster--the idea that 'castles in the air' that Lisbeth blows up are the ideal of Swedish society, which only a few committed people (Mikke, Lisbeth's doctor, and some others) actually believe in. Much of Larsson's success stems from the resonance of that residual disappointment in many modern democracies.

But the lone hero triumphing is something of a Dumas cliche, if not one from films. In films, of course, you need yet another small car chase is squeezed into the story, complete with baby-carriage being threatened, but yet again Larsson triumph because of the Salander character, and Noomi Rapace steals the show at the end, with her simple inability to express her thanks in person. This film, and its predecessor, give you the skeleton frames of the novels, much of the fascinating background, and make the best characters play out as they do on the page. It works for what it is, and it would be very hard to expect it to be more--I think of Rosi or Oliver Stone as filmmakers who have approached deep conspiracies successfully in more depth, and I've wondered about historical shorthand turning into longhand in The Baader-Meinhof Gang or Carlos, but I'd be curious to see how this would edit into a mini-series.

THE GIRL WHO PLAYED WITH FIRE

On Tuesday's BBC World Service programme The Strand, I discussed The Girl Who Played With Fire, which was released in Britain yesterday. You can hear that on BBC I Player here, for a couple of more days, it's the lead item in the running order. Here's a fuller take on the film:

The second Swedish film adapted from Stieg Larsson's Millennium novels is very different from the first, a more complicated yet less layered movie, with a number of impressive set-pieces and an even more impressive performance by Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth Salander. More complicated but less layered may sound an oxymoron, so let me explain.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo was scripted by a pair of extremely talented Danish feature film makers, Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg, and directed by another Dane, Niels Arden Oplev. They trimmed down the book considerably, particularly cutting back on Mikke Blomqvist's romances, to focus on his relationship with Lisbeth Salander. This had the effect of simplifying the story, making it more of a thriller, but it worked and kept a huge book manageable on film. When I saw the preview of that film, John Landis was sitting by me, and afterwards he exclaimed 'it's like an episode of Columbo', which says as much about his sensitivity to nuance as to plot arc, but in a way he was right. Take away the stuff about Swedish society, Nazi connections, abuse of women, and serial killers and it is more like a Columbo plot, though it was made so well, shot so subtly, it was hard to make the connection visually.

But The Girl Who Played With Fire, the second installment of the trilogy, allows that sort of connection to be made more easily. The films are being shot with Swedish and German television in mind, and this one was made by a director (Daniel Alfredsson) who, though he has made features, was also head of drama at SVT as well as a proflific and good television director, and scripted by Jonas Frykberg, whose career has mainly been in TV. This is not a question of quality as much as scale; this film seems scaled far more for the small screen than the first one. On The Strand I used the example of advocat Bjurman's summer house, where he has hidden Salander's files. Both times we see it, although the viewer should know what it is, Alfredsson makes sure to pull back to show the mailbox at the entrance to the driveway, the kind of establishing shorthand we expect on TV.

But the real difference between the two films is in the scripting, because this one remains very faithful to the novel, which has good and bad points. The bad is that, as with the first volume, the book is very densely plotted, and its characters are given lots of back story and time to develop. The result is that a number of times in this film, the characters have to explain things to each other, that is, to us, the audience. Certain interesting characters, like the detective Bublanski, or Salander's old boss Armanskij, don't get a chance to be developed here, while others, like Blomkvist's sister, are introduced with no explanation (we see her Italian in-laws, but don't learn she's a leading criminal lawyer--that presumably has been left for the third installment). There is also more romance in this one, we not only get a somewhat gratuitous but otherwise rewarding lesbian love scene with Rapace and Yasmin Garbi, but we see Blomkvist's relationship with his editor, Erika, not only when they are in bed but when he tells his in-laws he's in love with a married woman. That the excellent Lena Endre gets more space as Erika is another positive, though her role seems to be much like hers in the Swedish Wallander series, to act as a brake on the main male character. Interestingly, both she and Michael Nykvist are a bit older than the book's characters; Nykvist's Blomkvist is played with belly extended to make the point he's not a natural ladies' man.

There is also space for Per Oscarsson to deliver a fine performance as the stroke-ridden Palmgren, Salander's original guardian, and Peter Andersson is suitably slimy as Bjurman. Paolo Roberto, playing himself, is quite good, though I'm not sure we actually needed a car chase, except to re-establish this as a TV movie, but the difficulty with the character of Niederman, with his inability to feel pain, makes it difficult, and Micke Spreitz with his dyed hair reminded me of Robert Shaw in From Russia With Love (which, interestingly, is also the title of Mia's book about the imported sex trade), if not Ivan Drago from Rocky whatever number it was.

It is also odd how small anomalies stand out in the continuity. I didn't go back to the book to check, but did Miriam Wu really carry Salander's birthday present around in her purse for a full
year on the off-chance she might show up again? When Salander beats up the two motorcycle gang guys, and rides off on one of their bikes, where did she find a helmet that fits her? Neither biker wore one, nor were they carrying one (though I seem to recall in the book they might have been for a girlfriend). And a plot revolving around a key dropped by a woman who makes few mistakes of panic does stretch things a bit.

Those who have read the books will find this film touches all the bases. For those who haven't, it may be a bit hard to follow, but many of them will be presumed to have seen the first installment, which would make things a bit easier. But the selling point of this second film is Noomi Rapace. The scene where she dons face paint to frighten the journalist who's been linked to the sex trade is a bravura set-piece for her, and, much as the first film was Blomkvist's, with Salander coming to the rescue, this one is hers, with Blomkvist doing the same. That they play only one scene together makes that point even clearer.

The Girl Who Played With Fire is very good television, and it's an entertaining film, if not as impressive as its predecessor. And though Rooney Mara may come from American football royalty (her father's family owns the New York Giants and her mother's the Pittsburgh Steelers) she will have her work cut out trying to match Noomi Rapace's performance. I'll suggest my take on what the American version may be like sometime in the future (hint: Daniel Craig doesn't write for a small left-wing magazine, but for the Wall Street Journal).