Nordic Noir

Rating: 8/10 (12 October 2012)

A recent literary phenomenon in English-speaking countries has been the popularity of "Nordic Noir", Scandinavian crime fiction by such authors as Stieg Larsson, Henning Mankell (both Swedish), Jo Nesbo (Norwegian) and Peter Hoeg (Danish). A number of works by these writers have been adapted either for television or for the cinema, in Britain and America as well as in Scandinavia itself.
This is the second of two recent adaptations of Larsson's "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"; the first was a Swedish-language version from 2009 which I have not seen. It is an example of what has been called "neo- noir", the type of modern thriller which attempts to emulate the spirit of the classical films noirs of the forties and fifties while using the benefits of late twentieth or twenty-first century cinema technology. (The neo-noir style dates back at least to Polanski's "Chinatown" from the seventies; later examples include "Body Heat", "Gorky Park", "L A Confidential" "Insomnia" and Bille August's adaptation of Hoeg's "Smilla's Sense of Snow"). "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo" combines several main features of neo-noir, including a complex plot involving crime and corruption, a cynical, world-weary investigator who nevertheless retains a sense of decency and fair play, and a striking visual style which can act as an equivalent to the expressionist black- and-white photography of classical noir. Here David Fincher provides this visual element with some very distinctive photography of a rain- swept Stockholm and of the snow-bound town in northern Sweden where the Vanger family lives; as in some of Fincher's other films the film's gloomy look is intended to parallel the dark events which make up the story.
As the film opens, Mikael Blomkvist, an investigative journalist, has just lost a libel case brought against him by a businessman named Hans- Erik Wennerström. Despite the verdict, Blomkvist believes that he was right to accuse Wennerström of corruption, and accepts a commission from a wealthy industrialist named Henrik Vanger. Ostensibly, Vanger wants Blomkvist to write the history of his family, but he is in fact hoping that Blomkvist will be able to uncover the truth about his great-niece Harriet who disappeared in 1966 and is presumed to have been murdered. In exchange for this work, Vanger promises Blomkvist damning information about Wennerström (whom Vanger dislikes) as well as a handsome payment. In his researches Blomkvist has the assistance of a brilliant computer hacker named Lisbeth Salander.
In many ways it is Lisbeth rather than Blomkvist who is the main character. The Swedish title of Larsson's book literally means "Men who Hate Women"; possibly his translator changed this in order to stress Lisbeth's centrality to the story. In her sharp intelligence, her obsessive determination her belief in justice and her willingness to go outside the law in order to see justice done, she is reminiscent of Hoeg's heroine Smilla, but is a far more dangerous, threatening character.
Lisbeth, in appearance a mixture of seventies punk and eighties Goth, is intellectually brilliant, especially as far as computer technology is concerned, but is clearly emotionally damaged and vulnerable. At the age of twelve she was committed to a mental institution after trying to kill her father- we never learn the full details of this incident- and is still regarded as a "ward of the state" due to mental incompetency, which means that all her affairs are in the hands of a state-appointed legal guardian. Lisbeth is bisexual; we see her in a relationship with another woman, but she also finds herself falling in love with Blomkvist, despite his steady relationship with Erika, his partner in both the business and the romantic senses of that word. Rooney Mara- an actress I had not previously come across- gives an absolutely brilliant performance here, bringing out all the many facets of Lisbeth's highly complicated, contradictory character.
Scandinavia is often regarded in Britain as something of a peaceful backwater, socially progressive and with a low crime rate, but the picture given of Swedish society in this film is a very different one; murder, rape, incest, financial corruption and political extremism are all central to the plot. The Vanger family in particular have any number of guilty secrets This stress on the darker side of the human character is, of course, in the best film noir tradition, but the makers of this film were able to treat the sexual aspects of this dark side with much more freedom than were film-makers of the forties and fifties.
Larsson's original title may not have been retained in the English translation, but it is highly relevant to the events of the story, as male violence against women is a theme running throughout the film. Blomkvist and Lisbeth discover that Harriet's disappearance is linked to a series of killings of women during the forties, fifties and sixties. Lisbeth herself falls victim to such violence when her official guardian, Nils Bjurman abuses his authority to assault her sexually; she is to take a vicious, but highly effective, revenge.
Fincher has not always been my favourite director. Although "Panic Room" was a reasonably effective thriller, I found both "Se7en" and "Fight Club" overrated and "Zodiac" rather dull. "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", however, is the best of his films which I have yet seen. Besides Mara, Fincher is also able to bring out good performances from Daniel Craig as Blomkvist, the sort of dogged noir hero who sixty years ago would have been played by Humphrey Bogart or Glenn Ford, and Christopher Plummer as Henrik Vanger. There are also good contributions from Yorick van Wageningen as the repellent Bjurman and Stellan Skarsgård as Vanger's sinister nephew Martin. The acting, the striking photography and the intelligent, literate script combine to make this a grim but compelling thriller. 8/10