BEFORE: Yesterday's film was the only one in the Millennium trilogy that retained its original title after being translated from Swedish, the first book & film, which we Americans know as "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo", was called "Män som hatar kvinnor" in Swedish, and the real translation of that should be "Men Who Hate Women". Obviously somebody felt that title wouldn't play well in the States, maybe it hit a bit too close to home? So, sure, by all means, let's focus on that tattoo.
"Flickan som letke med elden" was the original Swedish title of the second book, and obviously that one passed the test and stayed the same - see, I told you I would be learning Swedish before the month was over! But the third book, which became "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest" in English-speaking countries, was titled "Luftslottet som sprängdes", which translates to "The Castle in the Sky that Blew Up". Well, OK, sure. I guess somebody figured that was a bit too fantastical for readers in the U.S. - but kicking a hornet's nest, that something we can all relate to, right? We were all once kids who were afraid of getting stung by bees, right?
Noomi Rapace and at least 17 other actors carry over from "The Girl Who Played with Fire".
THE PLOT: Lisbeth is recovering in a hospital and awaiting trial for three murders when she is released. Mikael must prove her innocence, but Lisbeth must be willing to share the details of her sordid experiences with the court.
AFTER: It's really a case of diminishing returns - each movie in the series is a little more boring than the previous one. Really, all this last film does is tie up the loose ends from the second film, via a lengthy court case where Lisbeth has to face the doctor from the mental institution where she was sent as a child, because he wants to commit her back to the same asylum, because of her previous diagnosis as a paranoid schizophrenic. That psychological condition is pretty much shorthand for "We don't know WHAT to do with this person, we just know they need to be locked up."
The problem is (or, rather, one of the many problems here is) that this doctor molested and raped Lisbeth back when she was a teenager, so facing off against him in court means confronting all her old traumas and demons again. She doesn't have the power to say, "Hey, this guy raped me." so instead she has to rely on other entities to get the dirt on this guy, both through proving that he forged reports back in the day, he's lying about how many days he kept her in restraints as a patient, and then there's the matter of not finding anything incriminating on his computer - but you just know he's got a stash of child porn somewhere, right?
It's also comforting to know that Mikael Blomkvist is on the case, working two different angles at the same time. He's got his whole magazine staff working on a special issue that will tell the world Lisbeth's backstory and exonerate her, plus he's working with a team of special government agents to take down something called "The Section", a part of the Swedish Security Services that's been responsible for everything from the protection of Russian defector Zalachenko to framing Lisbeth for murder, and possibly committing her to the asylum in the first place. Hey, at least the two concurrent stories are working well together again, but with Mikael publishing a magazine and also trying to gather evidence to take down the Section, one sort of has to wonder when he sleeps. Maybe he doesn't.
The relationship between Mikael and Lisbeth is obviously a complicated one, they slept together like once during a tense investigation, since then Mikael's maintained an on-again, off-again thing with his magazine co-editor, and Lisbeth had that girlfriend staying in her apartment, so going forward it's clearly not romantic, but they're internet friends, formerly with benefits I guess. And they'd clearly do anything for each other, as long as it also means taking down the big bad government or the evil sex trafficking murderers. And selling a few thousand magazine copies along the way, too. But it's dangerous to publish a magazine these days that exposes corruption, no matter which side you're on, you're bound to keep getting death threats from somebody who doesn't want the truth to come out.
I think we're seeing this now taking place in America, just look at what's going on in Congress to the men and women just trying to do their jobs, represent their constituents and pass legislation that's in the country's best interests, but we're so damn divided now that taking any kind of political stand (Liz Cheney is just one recent example), even if that person feels they're doing what's right according to the law, starts to draw calls for removal and most likely threats from citizens on the far right who still think Trump is our shadow president right now. But meanwhile a woman who thinks that Jewish lasers from space started the California wildfires is somehow allowed to keep her position in Congress, so we're in a weird place.
This whole Millennium Trilogy seems kind of Trumpian to me, in fact. The first film was action-packed, but also full of horrible actions, like a serial killer who mostly tortured Jewish women. The second film had fewer atrocities, but it also represented the climax of the battle between the scrappy underdog journalists and hackers against the big evil mastermind, and then the third film is really just the ensuing court case and the public figuring out who exactly did what and who needs to be punished as a result. So symbolically it's like the four years of Trump in power (full of atrocities, horrifying but also interesting on some level), then the 2020 election and now we're in the third phase, which is the impeachment and other pending trials to determine long-term liability. Both the third phase and the third film in the trilogy are rather boring, but I guess they're also similarly inevitable.
I've got one more day left in a month that turned out to be full of pandemically-appropriate films. Today's film, with someone recuperating in a hospital room, then transferred to a prison to await a court case, was just the latest example. Remember, I started the month with "Parasite", which was all about Korean people in tiny basement apartments, some of whom could not leave those spaces. Then both "The Reckoning" and "The Seventh Seal" took on the Black Plague, and Tom Hardy's characters were basically confined to a Florida resort in "Capone" and a car in "Locke", and so was that professor in "Wild Strawberries", all went a little mad as a result. Bergman characters also went a little nuts in "Through a Glass Darkly", "Hour of the Wolf" and "Persona", despite being on a beautiful secluded island, or perhaps because of that. Reality itself got upended after people in "I'm Thinking of Ending Things" got snowed in while visiting parents, the parents in "Birthmarked" had trouble while experimentally home-schooling their three kids, and even zoo animals felt the need to escape the circus in "Dumbo" and "The One and Only Ivan".
Meanwhile big corporations, police corruption and government conspiracies were on display in "Okja", "Spenser Confidential" and "Unlocked". There was a coup attempt (in Cuba) in "Havana", characters battled unemployment in "Wildlife", "Warrior" and "Muriel's Wedding", and crimes were running rampant in "RockNRolla", "A Kiss Before Dying" and this "Millennium" trilogy, and also "Connie and Carla", but at least in that last one there were plenty of drag performers on hand to entertain us with show tunes. So let's just say it's been quite a month.
I'm still not any closer to determining WHY Swedish people are so messed up, why they are such cold people, incapable of loving or being loved, why they are so cruel to their children across the board, and can't seem to break the cycle. Best theory is that it's some kind of seasonal affective disorder that lasts only 12 months out of the year, but I'm not an expert on this. But now I won't have to watch another film in Swedish for a very long time, maybe never again.
Also starring Michael Nyqvist, Lena Endre, Annika Hallin, Jacob Ericksson, Sofia Ledarp, Georgi Staykov, Micke Spreitz, Anders Ahlborn Rosendahl, Niklas Hjulström, Per Oscarsson, Michalis Koutsogiannakis, Johan Kylen, Tanya Lorentzon, Donald Högberg, Magnus Krepper, Pelle Bolander, Tehilla Blad (all carrying over from "The Girl Who Played with Fire"), Aksel Morisse, Hans Alfredson, Lennart Hjulström, Carl-Ake Eriksson, Mirja Turestedt, Niklas Falk, Jan Holmquist, Jacob Nordenson, Sanna Krepper, Tomas Köhler (last seen in "The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"), Johan Holmberg, Rolf Degerlund, Yiva Loof, Nicklas Gustavsson, Ismet Sabaredzovic, Hamidja Causevic.
RATING: 5 out of 10 burning documents
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