Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Swedish, subtitled and superb

Luckily I discovered The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo before it got uber popular and seriously hyped. I tend to shy away from anything hyped; it puts me off, knowing that I should like something just because everyone else seems to.

I also managed to read the other two books in the trilogy before they got hyped (also excellent, the second being my favourite) and the other weekend I watched The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo - the movie. I was nervous about the subtitles – the film is in Swedish – because I struggle to read text and watch moving images at the same time. That said, the books are set in Sweden and written by a Swedish author, who sadly had a heart attack and died before his books made it onto the shelves, so it’s only fitting that the film was made there using Swedish actors.

So, snuggled into my seat on a Sunday evening, the cinema – busier than I expected it to be for the time of day and considering this was a foreign film – I was engrossed from the start. My fellow cinema-goers joined me in sheer silence as we followed the story and soaked up the subtitles.

And… it was amazing, one of the best films I’ve seen in a long, long time and it put Alice in Wonderland, which I saw the day before, seriously in the shade. The Tim Burton promise of wonder turned out to be as wonderful as a poke in the eye with a sharp pencil.

What was also refreshing about TGWTDT was that it hadn’t been touched by Hollywood. The story is so strong it speaks for itself, and characters caked in make-up and then filmed under LA lighting would have taken a lot away from that.

The film opens just as the book does and continues to be a accurate portrayal of Stieg Larsson’s literary masterpiece. Obviously some things had to be tweaked slightly for the film to work, but it told the story well. And the film’s actors looked just like the book’s characters as I imagined them in my head (although Michael Blomkvist wasn’t so hot). There are two brutal rape scenes in the film which were dealt with well, and even though I knew the story – and the book was much more graphic – I still cringed.

My other half, who hasn’t read the book but does like his movies, has never sat so still during a film. He was engrossed and had great pleasure informing me it’s the best film he’s seen in the past five years. He loved the characters, the Swedish setting, the subtitles and the story, two tales entwined into one… one of murder and a decades-old mystery and the other about libel, journalism and a fight for justice.

My advice? Go and watch this film whether you’ve read the book or not. It’s brilliant and I’m looking forward to the next two and hoping they follow the same suit. Simple, Swedish and smart.