The Girl Who Kicked The Hornets' Nest

So the late Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy comes to its conclusion with ‘The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest’ or to give it its Swedish title ‘Luftslottet Som Sprängdes’ which translates literally and badly as ‘The Air Castle That Was Blown Up’. It seems that in Swedish an ‘Air Castle’ is what we would call a ‘Pipe Dream’. With that info the title starts to make more sense.

The film picks up exactly from where the second one left off and because of that it’s kind of important to have seen that film. Preferably you need to have read the books because again there’s quite a lot of unexplained stuff going on.

Our heroine Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) has somehow survived being shot in the head, as well as in the hip, and is now in hospital. Just down the corridor is another patient, the man who tried to kill her, her father Alexander Zalachenko. He’s having an axe removed from his skull, which is where she left it. Amazingly neither of them has a police guard. So it’s not difficult for the clandestine group inside the secret police, which we now know as ‘The Section’, to attempt to assassinate them both. They manage with Zalachenko but by more chance than anything they fail to get to Salander.



The film then follows Salander's rehabilitation process and also the preparation for her impending trail where she will charged with attempted murder. The same powers that be, who locked her in a psychiatric institution at the age of twelve, are hell bent on returning her there.



Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) meanwhile is preparing a special issue of ‘Millennium’ magazine exposing the whole shady lot of them and in the process hoping to exonerate Salander.



What follows is a complex web of intricate plot lines and characters, which is why you need the background story. Many people muck in together to help her; her friendly doctor is on side, as is Blomkvist’s sister Annika Giannini, an attorney, who is to defend Lisbeth. Her fellow computer hacker Plague even rides in on his white horse to assist. The old men of ‘The Section’ however, have no boundaries and are prepared to do whatever is necessary to silence everyone, prevent exposure of their group and bury their secret forever.



Finally though Salander and Giannini have their moment in court, outsmarting the prosecution and turning the tables on their key witness Lisbeth’s former psychiatric doctor, Dr. Teleborian. That’s quite fun to watch.



Unlike part two, which was all action at the expense of a more meaningful plot, this film is the other way around and most of the action comes towards the end as Salander explores an old factory left to her in her father’s will. That said the suspense of the scene is diluted by knowing that her psychotic half brother is lurking there. The action with the nail gun doesn't disappoint though.

For a film that still sprawls itself over two and a half hours, it is still lacking in detail and I can’t imagine it makes much sense to the casual viewer. Obviously a lot of material had to be cut from each of the books, which are huge tombs, but they have made some odd calls about what to leave in and out. There are also superfluous additions. Scenes added of Neiderman and an unnecessary sub-plot concerning Millennium boss Erika Berger and a stalker that was altered from the book but still left needlessly in the film. It achieved nothing and if the minutes were so valuable, why waste them?

Both of the last two films had a badly cut feel about them and when I dig deeper I find out possibly the reason why. All three films were intended as a six part mini-series but were then cut down to a reasonable film length. With that information, it begins to make sense why it doesn't make sense. I look forward to seeing the DVD's of the full versions sometime.

Neither this film nor 'The Girl Who Played With Fire, were as compelling as ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ but it's not bad. Overall the series has been a little disappointing and for once I'm actually looking forward to seeing Hollywood’s take on these. Not all car chases I hope. However Hollywood’s Salander, Rooney Mara, has a lot to live up to. The films may have been a bit messy but Noomi Rapace has been outstanding throughout.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

This film is showing as part of Broadway’s Nordic Noir season which in turn is part of the ScreenLit festival.

There’s something immediately odd about the film version of ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ and that’s the translation of the title, which in Swedish is ‘Män som hatar kvinnor’ or ‘Men Who Hate Women’. This actually gives a bit of the story away, whereas the Anglicised version doesn’t.

The story itself is the first part of Stieg Larsson’s ‘Millennium Trilogy’. Larsson was unlucky enough to die of a heart attack before the publication of any of the books in his trilogy, so he never got to see how popular they would become nor see the films they would spawn.

The film is two and a half hours long, so it should be more concise and to the point than the rather long book. It opens with the delivery of a package from Hong Kong, a pressed flower in a frame. The recipient, Henrik Vanger, receives one every year and one thing I’ve never quite understood in the book or now in the film is why he assumes it is from his missing niece’s killer, and not from the niece herself, which would of course suggest she wasn’t dead after all. Anyhow, swiftly steeping over that plot hole.

Vanger has been trying to solve the mystery of the niece, Harriet, for forty years. That is how long she has been missing. Now he decides to employ an investigative reporter called Mikael Blomkvist to have one final crack at solving the mystery before the ageing Vanger’s life comes to a close. It has become an obsession with him and over the years he has gathered a lot of information relating to the case but this hasn’t taken him any closer to finding out what actually happened to her. The disappearance happened during a family reunion on their isolated island and at the same time the only bridge linking the island with the mainland was closed due to a road accident, so Vanger is convinced that a member of his own family is responsible.



Blomkvist is sort of at a loose end after recently losing a libel case over an article he wrote for ‘Millennium’ magazine, a magazine in which he is involved with. He has had to resign his post there, as well as being required to serve a three month jail term, so he takes up Vanger’s case. He quickly discovers that the Vanger family are a weird bunch and also one with Nazi connections.



Eventually Blomkvist forms an unlikely alliance with the much younger Lisbeth Salander. Salander is an intriguing individual, a multi-tattooed, multi-pierced, leather clad biker chick type with a troubled past, who hacked her way into Blomkvist’s computer. She’s a former psychiatric patient who now has her financial affairs managed by a guardian. Her guardian is a nasty piece of work and we get to know Salander through some horrendous scenes with him.



Once together, the investigation starts to make progress and they follow a complex set of clues that reveal a string of sadistic murders of women going back decades. They realise they are tracking at least one serial killer, if not, due to the time span of the crimes, two. Things then get more serious when someone takes a pot shot at Blomkvist whilst he is out running and then when he makes a visit to one of Mr. Vanger's brothers who he thinks is involved, he ends up with the old man pointing a rifle at him. However Martin, Harriet's brother, saves him but when Blomkvist spills the beans about what he’s discovered in his investigation, he ends up drugged and about to find out who really is behind it all.

Salander has to rush to his aid, saves him, chases the murderer and then for an encore supplies the vital information that solves the mystery of Harriet.



It’s a grisly tale of murder, set amongst the cold Swedish winter, lightened somewhat by an upbeat ending. I thought it was quite a good effort at getting the marathon text of the book down to just a few hours. Though there are several things that have been changed or airbrushed completely out of the story.

The other two films in the trilogy have already been released in Scandanavia and the first of which should be out here later this year. Needless to say, just like 'Let The Right One In', a Hollywood version is already in the pipeline. I wonder who’ll play Salander?