David Fincher, absolute master of preciseness and high quality film has created the English version of the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. Now, this is something to get quite excited about in my opinion. Yes, there were the translated books and the original Swedish films but no one can really get excited if it's not in English. Now, don't get me wrong, I love to see films in their original language and I love to see films that are foreign.
But really, if someone can recreate the magic of the originals in English, then its a bonus point for the whole Hollywood culture. I haven't seen the film yet, but it tops my list of things to do when getting home, after exam studying of course...not.
There are several reasons for which this film has attracted me. First of all, the director. I absolutely adore David Fincher. Director of Se7en, Fight Club, The Social Network, he manages to draw you into films by being both violent and coarse but also clever and distinguished. His attention to detail, his selection of his cast and his beautiful screenplays bring his films to a new level. And yet, no Oscar, but no surprise there really in a way.
Second, the cast. Rooney Mara, if you don't remember is the girl at the beginning of the Social Network who breaks up with our hero Zuckerburg. She has a bit-part role in the Facebook film but she is the star in the chilling Swedish crime scene. Daniel Craig is an actor with fantastic grace and charisma which he displays not only in James Bond but previously in Layer Cake, a film I highly recommend but which is little known to international audiences. Christopher Plummer, delightfully chilling and Stellan Skarskard, who is Swedish himself make up the rest of the cast. A strange mix, if you look at their history and their accomplishments but I think that under Fincher, he will be able to get the best out of them, and make exactly what he wants of them.
Lastly, and perhaps most importantly is the fantastic trailer. I've read most of the first book (also on my reading list) and the trailer really seems to bring the story alive, and as some film critics have said; even betters the actual base material. The music on the trailer is superb, cold and claustrophobic, we are entrapped, unable to wrench ourselves away from the spectacle that has besieged us. I didn't think they made trailers this good anymore. The sweeping shots of the Swedish snow, which we only get a glimpse of but pull us in for more and the momentary violence, as if caught in the middle adds a frightening and horribly realistic aspect to it.
This movie looks different, classy, realistic, stylish but with a hard tone to it and an unmistakably violent character about it.
I say bring on this new brand of film, bring back the intelligence of the '90's, bring back class, wit and style that have been in large part, missing from the last decade of rubbish that Hollywood has spewed out. And if this is good - which it really had better be after I wrote this - push Fincher to make all three because as I said, properly interpreting a book for once is step forward after the horrors of Harry Potter and Eragon (which didn't even get a second chance). The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is top of my viewing list and I look towards it with a high level of excitement as well as expectation.
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