The Philippine Online Chronicles

There is something about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo that will steal, captivate, and break your heart all at the same time.

I have not read Stieg Larsson’s books, and I was hesitant to watch the movie adaptation because I was told it has very graphic scenes of sexual, physical, and psychological violence. But one night I was feeling bolder than usual and I started playing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo--the Niels Arden Oplev version--the one released in 2009. And although I watched it at a very late time of the night, the plot fought off any feeling of lethargy.

The Millennium Series

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an award-winning crime novel written by Stieg Larsson, a Swedish author and journalist. This is the first book of Larsson's trilogy known as the "Millennium series," a posthumous collection that became best-sellers in many European countries and in the United States. The two others were "The Girl Who Played with Fire" and "The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets' Nest".

Is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo based on a real story?

Sort of. According to this news article, a friend of Larsson named Kurdo Baksi said that the author witnessed a gang rape of a fifteen-year old girl and did nothing to save the poor victim. Larsson was said to have sought forgiveness from the girl days after the incident, but she refused to forgive him. This feeling of guilt is believed to have fueled Larsson to write the books.

"It was his way of apologizing," said Baksi in the report. The gang rape happened in 1969, in a camping site in Northern Sweden. It was Larsson’s friends who did the rape while Larsson just watched. According to Baksi, Larsson was too young, too insecure, and too loyal to his friends to think of doing the right thing. The name of the raped girl was Lisbeth, the same as Larsson’s main character, and she is also a victim of several kinds of abuse.

Larsson died of a heart attack in 2004. He was 50 years old.

What is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo about?

The main character in the story is Lisbeth Salander, an antisocial hacker who is troubled by her dark childhood. As a child, Lisbeth was ruled legally incompetent so as an adult she was supervised by a legal guardian. When her guardian falls to illness, she is assigned another one—a sick and sadistic man who sexually abuses her whenever she needed him to authorize to use her own money.

The movie starts with a journalist named Mikael Blomkvist who was charged guilty of defaming a rich and powerful industrialist of criminal activities. But before Mikael begins his sentence, he takes on one assignment from an old millionaire named Henrik Vanger, a man who is haunted by the mystery of his missing niece Harriet. Harriet went missing for over forty (40) years and Henrik is convinced she is murdered by one of his family members. The only problem is that he doesn't know who is responsible for Harriet’s disappearance and no one ever found her body.

Mikael crosses path with Lisbeth later in the movie, and the two end up working together to solve the mystery for Henrik. Lisbeth uses her computer skills and photographic memory and together they chase clues that take them to different parts of the country where they pick up pieces of the puzzle that link their mystery to a series of unsolved cases of brutal murders.

As the plot thickens, one gets hooked to the mysteries of the story: Who is Lisbeth Salander? What is the dark secret within the Vanger family? And more importantly, where is Harriet Vanger?

Movie hype

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo opened to good reviews. Rotten Tomatoes rated it fresh with a score of 86%. It has a perfect blend of danger and excitement that make you want to turn your eyes away, but at the same time you wouldn’t want to miss any moment of it.

Lisbeth Salander was played by Swedish actress Noomi Rapace. Rapace played a very convincing Lisbeth. She portrayed the character so well that it's so painful to see her in the graphic scenes of abuse.

Rapace has now conquered Hollywood by being cast in the newest installment of Sherlock Holmes which is still in theaters. She plays a gypsy whose brother is involved in a crime orchestrated by no less than Holmes' arch-nemesis, Prof. Moriarty. You can see her next in the Ridley Scott film Prometheus.

The character of Mikael Blomkvist was played by Michael Nyqvist. If the name does not ring a bell, he’s the guy who played opposite Tom Cruise in the MI4: Ghost Protocol movie.

Hollywood jumps in

The books and the films became so popular that Hollywood has made a remake released in December last year. Rooney Mara played Lisbeth while James Bond star Daniel Craig portrayed Blomkvist. Although Craig playing Blomkvist seems to change the story for me (because Craig makes Blomkvist sexy) I am positive that I will feel the same thrill when it finally hits Philippine theaters…hopefully soon!