The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo is a bit of a curious film to me; I saw the original Swedish film during 2010's summer and found it to be a completely engrossing thriller, with a mystery that got more perverted the deeper you looked into it. Audiences, whether they like to admit it or not, are obviously fascinated by anti-heroes, extreme rebels, social outcasts, which can only begin to explain why the late Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy (as it has been dubbed) is such a huge hit over here in the states.

Certainly this tale is tailor made for its director, David Fincher, who revels in tales of social misfits and anti-system messages. His Fight Club is one of the ultimate "stick it to the man" films, ending in the destruction of America's financial sector. And I'm sure he was drawn to the material, if only so he could bring the character of Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) to life. She is the ultimate Fincher heroine, with piercings, tattoos, and wacky hairdo, not to mention an independent streak that sets her apart from almost any other heroine in film.

Daniel Craig also stars as the film's other protagonist, Mikael Blomkvist, editor of Millennium magazine (where the trilogy no doubt draws its name), who has fallen under a scandal and lost his life savings because of an unfounded allegation he made against a fellow magazine mogul. Labeled with libel, he is whisked to northern Sweden where, on a remote island populated by a wealthy but estranged family, he is asked to investigate the murder of one of their members some forty years ago.

Lisbeth and Mikael stay separated for over an hour of the film as he begins uncovering a string of possibly related women murders, and she has an unfortunate run-in with a piggish social worker who will release Lisbeth's money to her in exchange for favors. Eventually they collide and the film focuses fully on the murders, though one wonders how much this will connect with Harriet.

The original title of the book and Swedish film is Män som hatar kvinnor which translates to Men who hate women. It's an apt title, considering all the content, though a film with that heading would never get recognition in the states (or a book for that matter) and the retitling is a bit more intriguing (though we never do learn the significance of that dragon tattoo). The film has an incredibly brutal rape scene and sex scenes that would have earned an independent feature an NC-17, but such is the Hollywood system that of course this skated by. Maybe its a sign of maturity on the MPAA's half that we can handle more extreme content, but then I remember Shame has an NC-17 rating.

But here's the thing: the film is almost identical to the 2009 Swedish one. Oh sure, it has a bigger budget, a more assured director, and a fantastic cast, not to mention a dynamite opening credits scene with a cover of Led Zeppelin's Immigrant Song that was quite the hit back when the trailer first dropped. Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, who won Oscars for their unique and haunting score for The Social Network (2010) return as composers, but it feels like more of the same. Their style of music certainly lends itself well to the unease that surrounds this film, but at the same time I couldn't help but think back to The Social Network and its score.

There is also a structural problem with the film. It opens with Mikael's problems at Millennium, then introduces with the missing girl Harriet, then introduces with the string of women murders. Then each one of these threads is resolved from the murders on back, but the film suffers in the resolution between Mikael and his foes at the rival magazine. It's a protracted denouement that drags on and on after Harriet's plot is resolved, when we have little interest in what's going on.

The film just feels pointless. The Swedish version was thrilling and engrossed me, and this version felt like the same thing but in English. It's a sign of how lazy we are that we won't see the foreign language version because we don't like reading our movies (though anyone who got through the book should have no problem with subtitles). I feel even Fincher reflects this notion: he doesn't feel like he's trying here, like he simply watched the Swedish one and said, "Well, they did a good enough job, so I'll just make the same version in English, make millions, and call it day." Which I don't fault him for.

The performances are great, especially Rooney Mara as Lisbeth, but I also feel like they aren't too different from their Swedish counterparts. If I had to pick who was better, Noomi Rapace or Rooney Mara, I would have to go with Rapace because Mara's performance is clearly modeled on hers.

Anyone who doesn't know the material will surely be entertained, but anyone coming back to see if anything new was done will be disappointed. It's as pointless as watching Let Me In, the remake of Let the Right One In. At least when Seven Samurai was remade in America, they changed the story to cowboys so it felt fresh (though American samurais are something that wouldn't work anyway). I don't mind a remake if it does something new with the material, or approaches the subject from a different angle. True Grit was hailed as superior to the John Wayne version, though that also may be because forty years means something new can be done with the material.

I'm just tired of these pointless remakes. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Which reminds me of Gus Van Sant's shot-for-shot remake of Psycho. He was asked to remake it, so he did. There was very little wrong with that film, and it never felt dated, so Van Sant figured it would be the easiest thing to do. He had the right idea.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

In my travels through the U.K. I have noticed one amusing thing: many films that we got in America during the summer are only just now starting to surface here. I've seen posters and advertisments everywhere for films like The Change-Up, Friends With Benefits, and Jane Eyre. However, Europe also gets films before we do, as in the case of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (no release until Dec. 9th in the US) and Tintin (which comes out at the end of October here and not until Christmas in America). The opportunity to see a film several weeks before it comes out is something that entices me, so I jumped on the opportunity.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is based on a 1970s novel by John le Carre, adapted into a BBC miniseries staring Alec Guiness at the end of that decade. Why they decided to now make a movie is beyond me, but it certainly is an interesting piece to behold. I have not read the novel, nor seen the miniseries, so my exposure to this material was limited and I came to this with a fresh perspective.

The film concerns a hunt through MI6 for a mole, lead by George Smiley (Gary Oldman). The suspects include, but are not limited too, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Toby Jones, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ciaran Hinds, and David Denick (the cast also includes John Hurt and Mark Strong). The film is a confusing labyrith of spies and secrets, and to say I didn't understand the film is putting it mildly.

Eventually I stopped trying to piece together the film and just let the colds tones of Hoyte Van Hoytema's cinematography wash over me (this is, after all, a cold war espionage tale). The performances were all fine, especially Gary Oldman in the leading role as a the passive investigator.

But I couldn't help but feel there were pieces of the film missing. Part of my confusion is due, I think, to the film's lack of a set-up. We are barely introduced to our key players before they all start intermingling in various exchanges, until I couldn't tell whether what they were doing was for their government or for another.

The plot, I feel, is probably not complicated and screenwriters Bridget O'Conner and Peter Straughan mixed up events in the film to further confuse and mislead the audience, which is not clever but lazy. It seems like the fault of the film lies with the screenwriters and the director, Tomas Alfredson, whose most notable credit is Let the Right One In. This film definitely reflects that one's tone.

It is then left to the actors to try and help the audience understand what is going on, and excellent as they all are, I feel they more or less fall short in this pursuit. I'm not necessarily miffed because I didn't understand the film: I enjoy confusing thrillers that you need to revisit to fully grasp what is going on. I'm more pissed that I didn't care for any of the characters. Oldman, Firth, Hurt, Strong, Hinds, and so on, all seem at a distance, which may very well reflect the nature of the spy but leaves me feeling very excluded.

Black Swan (2010)

There have been many movies in the history of cinema that deal with people descending into the realm of madness: Ron Howard's A Beautiful Mind (2001), Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver (1976), Stanley Kubrick's The Shining (1980), and Darren Aronofsky's own Requiem for a Dream (2000). Aronofsky's latest film, Black Swan, deals with obsession and madness through Natalie Portman's ballerina character Nina, who vies for the lead role in the widely-known swan lake.

But there is a catch to this Swan Lake: the director of the show, Thomas (Vincent Cassel), wants the same ballerina to play both the white swan and the black swan. For those who don't know swan lake, here is the quick rundown: a beautiful princess is turned into a swan, and must win the love of the prince to turn her back. Sadly, the prince is seduced by the black swan, the swan princess' sister, and so the white swan commits suicide. I'll be frank in saying this movie is not subtle about dealing with the duality of the swan characters and Portman's own inner struggle to embody both roles.

Portman's Nina is an uptight character who has a sense of entitlement to the role, and just wants to be perfect at everything. This is not what Thomas is looking for: he is looking for someone who knows how to let go, to inhabit the rigid, beautiful perfection of the white swan, and the dark, seductive nature of the black swan. Nina is a perfect white swan, but a terrible black swan. "Would you fuck this girl?" Thomas inquires of the ballerino (is that the correct term?). He can't answer. The point is made

(I have just googled "male ballerina." Indeed, ballerino came back as a positive name, though the french word "danseur" is also common)

This is a frighteningly tense movie, and it keeps you on the edge of your seat for so long that when Mila Kunis' character Lily shows up and takes Nina out for a night on the town, you relax because you can finally just let go, like Nina does. It is then to the director's credit that he keeps us as uptight as Nina, relieving us only when Nina does.

And the movie is incredibly effective as a horror film as well. Nina develops a rash on her back, and constantly has visions of peeling her skin off, cutting her toes, and even pulling feathers out of her back. The movie blurs the line between reality and fantasy so much that you get lost, with Nina, in what is going on. By the end all is clear, which is slightly disappointing because I would have loved some ambiguity left to whether certain events did transpire.

But where the movie goes too over the top is in its visual effects department. Nina's skin crawls, her legs bend awkwardly, and a whole assortment of weird stuff happens that doesn't need to. We get she is going mad, and crawling skin is too obvious a way to sell it to us. The audience is generally pretty smart and can figure out what is going on. The visual effects do pay off in when beautifully rendered shot near the end, as Nina fully embodies the black swan.

SPOILER ALERT

I really had a problem with the film's ending as well. I don't disagree with the events that take place, as it is appropriate for the story and the mirroring of the ballet taking place. No, what I don't like is how similar the ending feels to The Wrestler (2008), as Randy jumps from the ring and everyone chants his name before the screen goes black. Nina jumps too (it is the role of the swan), and then everyone begins chanting her name as the screen whitens out. It's not really that the endings are similar in story, but its also similar in the way he executes it.

END SPOILER ALERT

This movie belongs to Portman, who turns in a terrific performance that is sure to garner her tons of accolades and awards, perhaps an Oscar. Was it the best of the year? Hard to say, as I still have many more films to see. But Portman sells her role, and is able to transfer from uptight, to relaxed, and completely seductive throughout the course of the film. The Academy loves showy performances over the simply, quieter ones, and this one surely draws attention.

Black Swan, in the end, succeeds at being an exceptional thriller and performance piece, and showcase for both Aronofsky's excellent sense of tension and Portman's terrific prowess as an actress. Though it goes over the top and is not something I'd sit through again soon, I do recommend it highly. Just be warned that it is an exhausting movie emotionally, and as Nina feels relieved, so do we.

Rated R for hot lesbian lovin', hot Natalie Portman masturbatin', and creepy teacher-inappropriately-touching-student lovin'. Also blood.

The 39 Steps (1935)

Anyone who loves cinema has, at one point or another, seen Hitchcock. It's impossible not to; his films are their own, unique special brand, and while many have tried, none have made a film that can replicate the touch Hitchcock gives his pictures. Sure there have been more suspenseful works since then, but none have imbued their films with as much dry humor as Hitch does, at least in the way Hitch does.

39 Steps is not Hitch's best film, to be sure, but it is his first really good one. It's the film that really proved Hitch had an idea of what he was doing early on, he just didn't have his sure footing yet. It has many of the recognizable Hitchcock touches: an innocent man caught in a tale of intrigue, a ruthless villain who isn't seen much, and a blonde that becomes the love interest.

It also features probably the first great example of Hitchcock's MacGuffin, which is easily defined as the thing (object, person, anything) that motivates the plot, but the audience doesn't need to know what it is, only that it is essential it is obtained/stopped/whatever. The MacGuffin here isn't necessarily what The 39 Steps is, but what secret information they are trying to obtain.

We are introduced to Richard Hannay (Robert Donat), a Candian in London who attends a show where a gun shot is fired and panic breaks out. As he leaves, a young, sexy foreign woman asks to accompany him home to keep her safe from the men hunting her (you see, it was SHE that fired the gun). Hannay complies, and this is reason number one you don't take a mysterious, young, foreign, sexy woman home with you being hunted by spies. She divulges information about The 39 Steps, and the next morning she walks into Hannay's room with a knife in her back. Naturally, Hannay goes on the run because he has been framed for the murder, and to find out who is behind the secret organization.

Hitchcock uses the murder of a person to drive the plot, rather then what that key information is. Hannay spends much of the time on the run, and has a run-in with a blonde bombshell, Pamela (Madeleine Carroll), who doesn't believe him at first and keeps trying to turn him in. Slowly, of course, she comes round and eventually begins aiding him in his quest.

Hitch was a master at causing thrills, and none is more evident then in his brilliant set-up of his villain, Professor Jordan (Godfrey Tearle); Ms. Sexy Foreign spy tells Hannay that if he should ever run into a man with the top portion of his left pinky missing he had better run. Hitch finds something unique we won't forget, and when the Professor pulls out his hand and reveals the missing limb, it immediately instills the audience with a sense of danger. These classic methods are either gone or too rare for movies to deal with.

And here's the thing about the movie: it's thrilling, but at the same time it's not a completely stupid movie either. I definitely liked a lot more when I first saw it five or six years ago, but even on a second viewing (I had forgotten most of the movie by this point) I still found it engaging and entertaining. It's not as deep as one would like, which is typical of Hitchcock, but it is still smart.

It even takes a throw-away character, Mr. Memory (Wylie Watson) and uses him as a bookend piece AND an integral part to the story. Not a moment of this movie is wasted (thank goodness, since it is only 86 minutes!), and everything builds to its conclusion. I've seen a couple of Hitchcock's movies from the 30s, and I can say firmly this is the best of the bunch (of course I'm pending my upcoming viewing of The Lady Vanishes (1938), so that may change).

This is an important film for Hitchcock, and essential for any cinephile or Hitch lover. I'll reiterate again that this is by no means his best movie, but it certainly is the one that launched his career. Hitchcock wouldn't hit his stride until the 50s, when he churned out three or four masterpieces (the pinnacle of his career), but all the films leading up to that point are worth a look, if only to see how someone defines their style. I make it no secret that Alfred Hitchcock is my favorite director, because of his off-screen personality, and because of his unique dose of thrills.

M (1931)

I have seen Fritz Lang's M only twice now, but it is a movie I grossly underestimated, or forgot about, the first time around. This is a movie of profound power, that has the ability to challenge you with one viewpoint, and then unexpectedly turn things around on you and force you to view everything from a new, different perspective.

Petter Lorre is Hans Beckert, an elusive, anti-social young man who is a pedophile. Much beyond that, he also kills his victims, and this act causes such an uproar in the streets of the unnamed German city that police begin raiding bars to find him. Eventually he is found, but many great sequences lead up to this revelation.

First is the opening sequence, a simple yet powerfully done sequence in which children are shown playing, and then the faceless Beckert strides up and offers to buy a young girl a balloon, all the while whistling Edvard Grieg's Hall of the Mountain King. No gratuitous acts against the young girl are shown; instead, we simply get a shot of a balloon stuck in wires, and a ball rolling to a stop in the grass.

The movie descends into much of the first half as a standard police procedural, as the cops try desperately to find who this pervert is, working hours of overtime and getting 90% false leads. A unique spin comes from the German Underworld, who are getting so fed up by the constant police raids that they decide they must find Beckert themselves and end this once and for all.

M to me really speaks to German cinema in the early years of film, and solidifies my belief that they were they best filmmakers of the day. Robert Wiene helped define German Expressionism with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), and F.W. Murnau (Nosferatu, Sunrise) and G.W. Pabst (Pandora's Box) have turned out the greatest works from those early days. Not to mention Erich von Stroheim (Greed). And Fritz Lang essentially invented the science fiction genre with Metropolis (1927), another film I'd love to revisit because it has been so many years.

It is then sad that Adolf Hitler not only led the greatest genocide in history, but also destroyed the German filmmaking industry for Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda films. Fritz Lang had to leave his native Germany and went to America, and never directed anything notable ever again. But here is a film full of invention, tackling a subject that will always be grisly and unpleasant.

Two other remarkable scenes include: a scene where Beckert, driven mad by his desire to kill children, finds another suspect and whistles merrily the Mountain King. He is recognized by a blind man, and is marked by a young man with an M on his shirt. This shot, as Beckert turns and realizes what is on his coat, is one of the definitive shots in movie history. The realization that dawns on Lorre's wide eyes speak volumes about the danger he knows he is in.

Finally, the last scene in the film is altogether another remarkable piece of virtuoso filmmaking. Captured by the German Underworld, Beckert is put on trial in front of not just mobsters but many citizens from Germany up above. One man is assigned to Beckert's defense, and two powerful speeches are delivered: the first comes from Beckert. Writhing on the ground, he screams that the urge to commit this horrible acts is something he can't control. Here, Peter Lorre lets loose with the character and screams for mercy, because he really is insane, he really can't control the urges.

The second speech comes from his "lawyer" who states that, yes, this man has committed these awful crimes, and that he should be left to the police, not killed by the mob of angry people standing at this mock trial. A strange thing happens during these two speeches: you actually feel sorry for the pathetic little man, writhing on the floor. Not empathy, for anyone who does may need to be checked out themselves, but a small grain of sympathy is shed for this unworthy man.

In America and indeed maybe most other places in the world in the 30s, you wouldn't find a movie that explored such dark and resonant themes as these. I love classic Hollywood pictures, but something has to be said for the mundanity of most of their plots. You see where they are all going, its just how are they going to get there. But in Germany particularly, anti-heroes and antagonists were getting plenty of attention, and it is a shame that Hitler rose to power, because of the War and genocide, and also the destruction of many more potentially great films.

Footnote: The movie ends by stating that the current version of the film, which runs 110 minutes, is still an incomplete form of the movie. Like with so many other pictures in that day, scenes were edited out and that footage was lost. Still, the edition that exists in lovely Criterion transfers is well worth the watch.