Most people who see this film are probably already well familiar with the story surrounding Lisbeth Salander, the unlikely “heroine” of the trilogy by Swedish author Stieg Larsson. Director Daniel Alfredson, who also directed The Girl Who Played with Fire, apparently also assumes this, as he spends little time giving background, instead showing quick cuts of a few scenes from the two earlier films and allowing Lisbeth’s background to unfurl through her trial for murder. Unlike the previous films, there is very little dramatic violence here, though Lisbeth’s confrontation with her giant brother Ronald Niedermann (Micke Spreitz), who is unable to feel pain, is one of the film’s high points. There are no graphic sex scenes, and the only sexual abuse is done off-camera. The Swedish setting–and the mood–are dark and cold, paralleling the life of Lisbeth Salander. The final scene, subtly different from the novel, consists of Lisbeth uttering one word–a word that had as much long-term dramatic effect for me as the word “Rosebud” does in Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane. Ultimately, the viewer feels a kind of peace at the end of the film, a sensitive and satisfying conclusion to this trilogy.
Read Full Post »
French Grand Prix de Litterature Policier (2008) but also winner of the People’s Literature Award and the Author of the Year Award in Sweden. She is second only to Stieg Larsson in sales in Sweden and is the sixth most popular author in Europe. Her unique style and sense of plot have made her an international standout, and this book, the first of her seven novels to released in the United States, has already been translated into twenty five languages. The Ice Princess begins ominously with an unnamed person finding the body of a woman in a filled bathtub in a house so cold that ice has formed around her. Her wrists are slashed in an apparent suicide, but despite the gory scene and the rivers of frozen blood, a mysterious visitor believes that “his love for her had never been stronger.” This is a sophisticated and carefully conceived mystery which will delight those whose interests lean toward the inner worlds of the characters rather than their willingness to take up the sword.
Read Full Post »
The second film from the Millenium Trilogy of novels by Stieg Larsson, The Girl Who Played with Fire, like its predecessor, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, hews closely to the plot line of the novel. Without any introduction, the life story of Lisbeth Salander continues where it left off, as she tries to navigate a world which damaged her to the point that she has difficulty relating to all humans. This film features the same cast in the lead roles as The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo though both the director and the cinematographers have changed. Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), a computer hacker extraordinaire, has returned from a year of traveling the world, during which time Mikael Blomqvist (Michael Nyqvist), publisher of Millenium magazine, moved on with his life. Like the book, this film is Lisbeth’s story, and as her background unfolds, the reader comes to know how and why she was institutionalized and why she is so damaged.
Read Full Post »
Over 2.5 million people in Scandinavia have seen this film, making it the first film in Scandinavian history ever to break the $100 million mark for European ticket sales, and US fans of Stieg Larsson’s bestseller of the same name may propel the film to similar records here. The R-rated film tells the story of Mikael Blomqvist, a disgraced journalist for Sweden’s Millenium magazine who accepts an invitation from an elderly businessman to investigate the disappearance of his niece Harriet, thirty-seven years ago. No trace of her has ever turned up, and the old man fears that a member of his family may have murdered her.
Read Full Post »
Instinctive and natural as an actress, and impulsive and romantic as a person, Bergman conveyed sensuality at the same time that she conveyed innocence, and the public loved her. They saw her as Sister Mary Benedict in Bells of St. Mary’s and as Joan of Arc, never knowing much about her private life, and ignoring the fact that she left her young child and husband, Petter Lindstrom, at home in Sweden to come to the US to make movies. Her affairs with Gary Cooper and Victor Fleming were never reported. Alfred Hitchcock was unabashedly in love with her and was devastated, as was her public, when she became involved with Roberto Rossellini in 1950, while working on the film of Stromboli. Her flagrant affair, her pregnancy, and her out-of-wedlock child in 1950 became the subject of a speech on in the US Congress and were regarded as a complete betrayal of the public trust which had believed her image. “As it was, Ingrid Bergman was only really “Ingrid” from Casablanca [1942] to Under Capricorn [1949]—seven years,” in which she made ten hit films.
Read Full Post »
