Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

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Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander
David Fincher’s tense, moody film adaptation ofthe popular Stieg Larsson book actually improves on the readingexperience.  Where the book offered agreat story with plodding prose, Fincher’s film cuts the narrative to the bonewhile staying faithful to Larsson’s plot and characters.  The film’s visual style makes it a pleasureto watch, evoking both the cosmopolitanism and gritty urbanism of Stockholm andthe frozen, snow-blown north Sweden countryside where much of the centralmystery unravels.
For a film that’s in large part about an ace computerhacker, Fincher both downplays and makes visually interesting LisbethSalander’s notorious skills, intercutting shots of her snub-nailed fingersflying over her keyboard with those of her intense gray eyes, replete witheyebrow-piercings, peering intensely at the screen.  Only sparingly does Fincher use screen shotsthat indicate she’s reading other people’s email.
The film is a huge improvement over the Swedish versionreleased a few years ago and starring Noomi Rapace as Lisbeth, which I found amore literal, bloodless adaptation. Fincher’s slick Hollywood idioms turn the story into a stylish,fast-paced thriller.  In the openingcredits (as other critics have noted), the director nods both musically andvisually to the iconic James Bond films, a nice intertextual reference, sinceFincher’s Mikael Blomkvist is played by Daniel Craig, the latest Bond.
Fincher also judiciously uses atmospheric, nearlyTechnicolor flashbacks to the Vanger family’s 1960s history, when the familypatriarch’s treasured niece, Harriet, mysteriously disappeared.  Fincher makes the American adaptation ofLarsson’s story more vivid, lending cinematic appeal to the narrative while he movesit smoothly through its paces.
Thereal revelation in Fincher’s Girl withthe Dragon Tattoo is Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander.  Nominated for a Golden Globe (which she lostto Meryl Streep for The Iron Lady)and now for a Best Actress Academy Award, Mara deserves the accolades heaped onher performance.  Her Lisbeth is slightbut fierce; Mara seems both smaller and steelier than Rapace was in the role,more emotionally fragile but more physically and psychically determined.
Inher early scenes in her kindly employer Dragan Armansky’s office (Goran Kisnjic,in a small but empathetic supporting role) and in her first meeting with NilsBjurman (Vorick van Wageningen),  herevil new guardian, Lisbeth refuses to make eye contact.
Butwhen she does shift her gaze to look directly and defiantly at herinterlocutors, you see a young woman who’s absolutely in control of her traumaticpast (about which we learn very little in this first film of the trilogy).  She’s taught herself a kind of discipline thatkeeps her highly functioning while letting her passion for vengeance simmerjust underneath the surface of her skin. Those gray eyes become the swing door to a boiler room of the soul,where her rage is stoked by knowing that the social corruptions—most of themgendered—that have kept her a ward of the state since she was twelve continueto structure Swedish life.
Onthe other hand, if you don’t know her backstory, Lisbeth doesn’t necessarily seemmotivated by revenge.  My intrepidfilm-going companion, Feminist Spectator 2, hasn’t read any of the Larsson books,and found Lisbeth even more fierce and fascinating because she appearsbrilliant, scary, and tough without being psychologized.
Dragon Tattoo is, of course, just thefirst in what will be a new trilogy of films based on Larsson’s story.  In this one, all we hear of Lisbeth’s past iswhat she mutters to Blomkvist when he’s finally gained her trust.  When he asks her why she’s still a ward ofthe state, Lisbeth admits matter-of-factly that she’s considered criminallyinsane because she set her father on fire and burned 80 percent of hisbody.  But since even this tiny, teasingrevelation comes relatively late in the film, FS2 says spectators have alreadycome to admire her without needing this justification.
Lisbeth’ssordid history will be fully explicated in the next two films.  Mara, however, plays her with full knowledgeof the character’s past and her journey into her vexed present.  Mara’s achievement is to make Salander afierce, even feminist, character without creating her as a monster.  Sure, all her Goth accoutrements are in place,from her jet-black Mohawk to her kohl-lined eyes to her multiple facial andbody piercings, along with her leather jacket, knapsack, boots, and greencanvas cargo pants.
Lisbethsmokes like a tough, holding her cigarettes between her thumb and herforefinger and squinting at the ubiquitous smoke.  She wears ratty black t-shirts andsweatshirts with hoods she pulls up to hide beneath.  When Blomkvist barges in on Lisbeth and aone-night-stand she’s picked up at a lesbian bar, her tattered t-shirt reads“Fuck Off You Fucking Fuck” in faded stenciling.  (But he’s undeterred.)  Her neck is adorned with heavy chains andrazor blades, the jewelry of a woman who refuses to submit.
Lisbeth, hooded
[If you haven’t read Larsson’s books or seenthe Swedish film trilogy or Fincher’s adaptation,spoilers follow.]
AlthoughLisbeth is a force to contend with, her new guardian decides he can use hispower over her for his own nefarious sexual purposes.  Bjurman forces her head into his lap at theirfirst meeting, threatening to commit her to an institution if she doesn’tcomply.  When she sees him again,required to ask him for money since he’s taken control of her affairs, he rapesher brutally, sadistically enjoying the pain and humiliation he inflicts.  But it doesn’t take long for Lisbeth to exacther revenge, forever reducing her rapist to a quaking eunuch.
Lisbeth threatens Bjurman in an elevator
ToFincher’s credit, the film doesn’t sensationalize Lisbeth.  The other characters don’t react to her asthough she’s a spectacle, undercutting what might be spectators’ expectationsthat she’ll create a stir simply by how she looks.  Instead, lawyer, Dirch Frode (StevenBerkoff), dispatched by the wealthy Henrik Vanger (Christopher Plummer), treatsLisbeth respectfully, aware of her talent as a researcher and overlooking heropen hostility.
Likewise,when Blomkvist peremptorily visits her apartment after he learns that she’shacked into his computer, he, too, is unfazed by her unkempt appearance andaggressive demeanor.   Instead, he insists that she drink the coffeeand eat the breakfast he fixes for her while he persuades her to help him findHarriet Vanger’s murderer.
AsFS2 points out, that the film’s “good” men react generously to Lisbeth directsspectators to see her magnanimously, too. On the other hand, FS2 continues, Mara is a beautiful young woman, andthe camera exploits her small, perfect features, her flawless skin, and herclear gray eyes.  That is, despite allher bravado and her frightening accessories, Fincher takes care to on somelevel glamorize Lisbeth, to keep her safe from the audience’s, as well as theother characters’, antipathy.
Eventhe police officers she approaches while she’s doing her work seem to findnothing remiss in Lisbeth’s outfit or her bearing.  They worry that the information she wantswill upset her or they’re annoyed because she expects unusual access anddemands too much time.  But they obviouslydon’t see her as a freak.
Nonetheless,she rides a mean motorcycle and wears a fearsome helmet.  Lisbeth’s heroism comes from her charactermore than it does from her actions.  Whenshe forces the villainous Martin Vanger (Stellan Skarsgard) off the bridge on hisfamily’s island, causing his car to overturn and catch fire as he stares out,doomed and helpless in the driver’s seat, Lisbeth watches without remorse.
Andwhat a nice switch to see her rescue Blomkvist from certain death instead ofvice versa.  Too often in suspense filmslike Dragon Tattoo, it’s thewoman—however intrepid and smart—who is saved at the end by the man when shefinds herself unwittingly trapped in the villain’s house.  In DragTattoo, on the contrary, at the film’s climactic moment it’s Craig/Bond/Blomkvistwho is trussed up like a bird waiting to be plucked, and it’s Lisbeth whoseeleventh hour appearance, wielding a nasty golf club, saves his life.
Lisbethand Blomkvist simultaneously solve the central mystery of who has beenmurdering women—all gruesomely raped and slaughtered with references to Bibleverses—around the time Harriet Vanger disappeared.  But it’s Lisbeth who tracks the killer to hislair after Blomkvist falls into his trap, and Lisbeth who, once the demon isdispatched, goes on to vindicate Blomkvist’s wrongful slander conviction in theWennerstrom corporate corruption case that sets Larsson’s plot in motion.
The Wennerstromrevenge subplot of Dragon Tattoo isnearly campy, as Lisbeth sheds her signature style for a Dolce and Gabbana lookthat one critic rightly called “drag.” She dons a blond wig and outsized sunglasses, a form-fitting dress andstiletto heels, to move some funds around various off-shore banks, creating atrail of financial malfeasance that bankrupts Wennerstrom, exonerates Blomkvist,and secures Lisbeth’s independent future.
Mara as Lisbeth in drag
Inher drag scenes, Mara beautifully performs Lisbeth’s disdain for her temporary performanceof conventional femininity.  When hermasquerade is over, she tosses her earrings down an airport sink and throws herwig out the window of a train.  Thesequence is a wonderful illustration of Lisbeth’s skill as an operative, but aneven better demonstration of her utter aversion for traditional femininecostumes and behavior.
I wasactually surprised that Fincher’s film leaves Lisbeth’s feminism so intact.  I found Fincher’s representations of women inhis film, The Social Network, misogynist.  Those who disagreed with me often pointed toMara’s character in that film; she plays Mark Zuckerberg’s smart and cutting butquickly dismissed and ultimately irrelevant girlfriend.
Butwhile women were incidental sexual playthings in The Social Network, Dragon Tattoo is very much Lisbeth’s film.  She’s its moral and narrative center and itskeen social observer.  Watch Mara’s earsand eyes perk up when Blomkvist invites her to help him find “a man who killswomen” (which was apparently the title Larsson preferred for his first book).
Lisbethis also the film’s most interesting character study, not because of how shelooks and dresses but because of how she reacts to the world around her andthen acts.  Mara has little dialogue, but her expressiveface and her physical commitment to Lisbeth make her fascinating.  Watch her exit from the elevator where sheexcoriates the reprehensible Bjurman and leaves him terrified as the doorsclose behind her.  Just turning her backon her guardian is a moment of utter command, clarity, and complexity.
Lisbeth/Maraalso brings Dragon Tattoo asurprising sense of humor.  When shebegins working with Blomkvist, the couple hunch over his laptop in the coldcabin Henrik Vanger has provided for him. She rolls her eyes as Blomkvist slowly pecks at the keys to bring upscreen images.  It’s a small buthilarious moment, as Mara gives Lisbeth an interior life lets her drolly,wordlessly comment on her male partner’s technological inadequacies withoutneeding to perform her superiority.
Lisbethis firmly in control of their relationship. She initiates their first sexual encounter; she demands that he stoptalking until she has her orgasm; she saves him from certain death; and shedelivers the goods on Blomkvist’s nemesis, Hans-Erik Wennerstrom (Ulf Friberg),which restores Blomkvist’s reputation.
My quibbleswith Fincher’s representation of Lisbeth are minor.  For example, after she’s raped by Bjurman,she stumbles home for the de rigueur victim-in-the-shower scene, where we seeher bruises and the blood running from her body into the tub.  (I guess it’s difficult to signify pain in afilm without these iconic signs. Although Mara does an excellent job screaming Lisbeth’s rage as shestruggles against Bjurman’s restraints.)   The next time we see her, Lisbeth is in alesbian bar, where she picks up the (beautiful) woman who Blomkvist findssharing her bed the next morning.
The dragon tattoo and Lisbeth in pain
Thejuxtaposition of the rape and the lesbian bar scene makes it seem as though malesexual violence has propelled Lisbeth toward sex with women.  Instead, in the book, she has an on-goingrelationship with a woman that mirrors Blomkvist’s relationship with hiscolleague, Erika Berger (Robin Wright), and clarifies that one of Lisbeth’scharms is her assertive bisexuality.
Likewise,Dragon Tattoo’s last several scenesfocus too much on Lisbeth’s unexpected affection for Mikael.  She tells her beloved former guardian, HolmerPalmgren (Bengt CW Carlsson), who’s in a nursing home recovering from a stroke,that she’s made a friend.  She buys Blomkvistan expensive leather jacket and she rides off to deliver it to him.
Despiteher strength of character and insight, Lisbeth is emotionally immature, andhasn’t picked up Blomkvist’s cues.  Soshe’s devastated when she arrives at the Millenniummagazine offices to find the flirtatious Mikael going off in a taxi with Erika.  The film ends on Lisbeth’s romanticdisappointment, which undercuts her earlier rejections of heterosexual femininity,especially for those spectators who haven’t read or seen the earlier version ofthe trilogy and don’t understand—as they say—where she’s coming from.
Butstill, Fincher and Mara make Lisbeth complicated enough.  That final moment could be read as a strongwoman realizing she was about to succumb to sentiment and abruptly choosing notto.  (Well, maybe that’s a stretch).  And Lisbeth does seem young.  In comparison, Fincher portrays Blomkvist as squarelymiddle-aged, and steers Craig far from his Bond action hero routine.  The actor sports an unshaven, grizzledsalt-and-pepper chin throughout the film, and rather than leaping tallbuildings and consulting cool gadgets, he’s often physically compromised.
Forexample, when he creeps around Martin’s glass-walled lair in the film’s climax,he’s the one who takes a kitchen knife from the counter, intending to defendhimself as ineffectually as a typical female victim in a horror film.  Blomkvist is the one who falls when he tries torun from Martin’s house and who is lured back in to the man’s trap.  As Martin boasts with a sneer, people’sdesire not to offend often trumps their instincts for self-preservation.  (Skarsgard plays the villain with the perfectmix of unctuous obsequiousness and arrogant pride.)
Blomkvistis the first man who’s demonstrated this self-defeating instinct to Martin.  Blomkvist is a metrosexual intellectual, anot quite effete representative of the fourth estate, and Craig plays him withintelligent bemusement and horror at the grisly murders his researchuncovers.  His black-rimmed glasses hangcrookedly off his ears instead of over his head, and he pulls them onto hisface to peer into documents and computer screens.  Using eyeglasses to signify intelligence is atired cliché, but Craig at least makes the gesture convincing.
Blomkvist (Craig) and Erika (Wright) at the magazine offices
Wrightplays Blomkvist’s long-time friend and sometime bed-mate Erika as hisintellectual and political companion.  Wright’sbeauty is only enhanced by the lines on her face.  The middle-aged couple has a lived-inrelationship, even though she remains married to her husband.  Blomkvist and Erika are comfortably establishedin their lives, in contrast to Lisbeth, who’s still struggling with the tangledtendrils of her past.
Lisbeth’srelationship with Blomkvist might be a turning point.  A scene in which they work together on thebed in a hotel room, with him in a white terry robe and her in her Goth outfit,is a nice moment of intimacy across clear differences.  But she’s still testing new contours for herlife, while his are indisputably firm.
It’sa shame, then, that the film’s ending makes Lisbeth seem a jilted lover, whenher character is otherwise so compelling, strong and competent.
Onelast note:  I’m surprised that criticsand spectators refer so often to what they consider the film’s extreme violenceand sexuality.  While the rape scene is certainlyhorrific, Dragon Tattoo didn’t strikeme as significantly more brutal than any other shoot-‘em up, set-‘em-on-fireaction flick.
Doesthis film seem more extreme because its hero is a woman?  Because Lisbeth neutralizes Bjurman with a stungun and then tattoos “I am a rapist pig” across his naked stomach?  Because it’s Martin, the male killer of women,who dies in a ball of fire?  Or becauseit’s Daniel Craig who’s victimized and saved by a woman in the end?  Just wondering.
TheFeminist Spectator