The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

When was the last time that you eat? Because David Fincher has prepared something that might not be for sensitive stomachs. Let’s talk about the awesome thriller that Niels Arden Oplev manufactured for the movie screens based on the novel by Stieg Larsson and let’s recall the unpleasant sensations that led Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) to collaborate with the journalist in disgrace Mikael Blomkvist (Daniel Craig). She, an abused woman, beaten and taken to the limits, knew she had the power, intelligence and strength to counter attack situations like the ones that had happened to her. The film states Lisabeth’s strenghts clearly through the manipulation of the action; but also we see that the feature more than just them.

The first, Swedish version of this thriller was more of a grim statement of principles of the gender, a scream for women re-empowerment, through the figure of Salander: she fought a war against a world hidden beneath pristine snow; she was the girl who always lifted up the carpet and found the hidden trash of society; she always insisted on proving and showing her virtues. A lot similar to the master Michael Haneke, Niels Arden Oplev (the director of this first version) left us restlessly thinking that in those countries with gold topped buildings and cathedrals taken out of fairy tales, disease and sickness hide: abusing of your own family; hiding crime in basements; permanently demeaning women who dare to speak out.

On the other hand, in the new adaptation by Fincher, a more presumptuous and daring director, the story/movie turns to deeper considerations and, why not, into a more depressing story. Fincher takes a risk that Oplev failed to detect. Let’s mention Haneke again: he always accommodates a thin layer of dirt whispering in his atmospheres and scenarios, dirt that always tend to go beyond the particular place and location he is describing in his stories.  Fincher, just like Haneke, makes that evil, that beast disguised underneath the carpet, universal rather than local and particular as Oplev put it: watching The Girl’s with the Dragon Tattoo gives the audience the message that it is just a matter of opening our eyes to see this evil run at will, anywhere.

This movie is full of the tools and weapons of a classic thriller. However, these tools build up a more complex story because, thanks to good timing and the parallel stories (and then crossroad) of the two characters, they serve the purpose of building up the perfect climax. In fact, Fincher holds on for long to the individual story of Salander and Blomkvist, thus building a launching pad into what the film turns towards the end.

As for stylistic finess, that will delight our eyes (and subtly open them to the truth), Fincher employs shots and close-ups that are very daring and well developed: for example,  a selective light bulb on Salander's ear serves as hint that she listens more than she shows, expert at reading minds; a camera that flies over the heads of the characters is like a supernatural presence that watches everything but is unable to intervene for anyone; dark colors that turns what  in other eyes would be landscapes worthy of a Christmas card into attics and basements; the dragon tattoo that is shown here on the back of a sexually victimized Salander symbolizes both her fragility sand her strength in taking the burden.  Ultimately, separating our eyelids, Fincher puts a layer of evil over the entire planet, taking hope out of sight and closing the door to keep it out.

The perfect follow up to these stylistic choices is the hectic close and perfectly measured conclusion that places Salander as a woman with a lot of attitude and Blomkvist as an instrument of revenge.

The music by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, interwoven with the narrative environments, vacuums that transform into hums that become whispers and sweet tunes that, without any warning, flirt with the morbid and the scary. It is a  different but complementary kind of violence made of anti-tunes that harmonize with the atmospheres created by Fincher. The sum of all is a reflection about violence, revenge (which is also violence), the battle of the sexes and, above all, the deep-seated human evil, which somehow escapes through cracks that many might confuse with love; evil that is written in holy books and acts on neat and almost passionless scenarios. 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Fincher is, again, a massive exercise that lets us see that  human evil does not have to be loud to exist and be seen: it always finds a way.

Director: David Fincher

Writers: Steven Zaillian (screenplay), Stieg Larsson (novel)

Stars: Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara and Christopher Plummer