The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Who decided that calling a movie The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was a good marketing move? (Because it definitely wasn’t one of those artistic/creative decisions.) Might as well have called it The Goth Girl with A Lot of Piercings and an Awesome Mohawk, Who is Also Good at Hacking, no? …Yea probably not that. But still.
The native title of both the book and the original Swedish film is Män som hatar kvinnor—which translates to a more fitting, albeit more polarizing and less sexy, Men Who Hate Women. This adds a completely new dynamic to the film that I want to briefly touch upon.
There has been a lot of praise (especially from female critics and bloggers) about how refreshing it is to have such a strong, independent, kick ass female lead. How she is a woman others can relate to and learn from.
But is Lisbeth Salander really?
I have a hard time understanding how her revenge made anything better. Do her actions (no matter how justified) truly “empower” women? Is that really what an independent woman with power looks like? I would like to think not. And I know that is one extreme example, but take for example a more subtle instance later in the film. Just as Lisbeth saves her male counterpart Mikael in the basement and is about to chase Martin, she hesitates and turns around to ask, “Can I kill him?”
WHAT? Why does she need permission if she’s such an individual? Since when does she need approval to do the things she wants? Does this undermine everything she stands for as a woman? As a person? Is she just another female character written by a man, in a man’s world?
I’m probably taking this a bit too far, but it was the most interesting point of conversation in an otherwise mediocre movie. I think it’s David Fincher’s least compelling film to date (mostly due to weak source material)—which really isn’t so bad considering his filmography.
