Marianne

Marianne (2011)

Dir. and written by Filip Tegstedt

Starring Thomas Hedengran, Dylan M. Johansson, Sandra Larsson, Peter Stormare,

What we got is here is an interesting and enjoyable Swedish family drama, with a very, very light sprinkling of horror. Probably in all honesty a little too light, at least for me. The horror is pretty well done when it comes, but cumulatively there’s probably only 10 minutes spread out across the 103 minute runtime. The rest of the time, it’s a quiet and prickly family drama about a father (Thomas Hedengran, FROSTBITE) estranged from his teenage daughter (Sandra Larsson, MARIANNE) following the death of his wife. And it’s a good quiet and prickly family drama about a father estranged from his teenage daughter following the death of his wife. But that’s what you’re gonna get here, so fair warning.

Basically, Krister, the dad, is a very repressed, reserved guy --even by Swedish standards-- trying to deal with his pain over the recent death of his wife and his guilt that he has been a pretty shitty husband and father. The first thing we see in the film is him ruining his family’s vacation by secretly sneaking away to call his mistress. But he’s not all bad; he seems to be trying the best he can to be a good father to his daughter now. It’s just that he hasn’t really earned the right to be taken seriously by her, and she resents him trying to step into her life now that her mom is gone. She’s openly defying him and mostly living with her dorky pothead boyfriend “Stiff” (Dylan M. Johansson, Swedish citizen) despite her father’s obvious need for help caring for his newborn child, her baby brother.

Sittin' Pretty

But Krister has another problem, too. When he goes to sleep, he’s visited by a mysterious ghost, who likes to stand around grinding its horrible teeth almost touching him. This is the horror part, but boy, just like THE CANAL it seems likely there’s another explanation for why he’s experiencing this. When he’s pushed into seeing psychiatrist Peter Stormare (BAD BOYS II, BRUSIER) to help him deal with his stress, he’s gently told that this is a common phenomenon called “sleep paralysis” and that many people suffer from it, particularly when they are experiencing severe stress, hint, hint. Unhappy with that explanation, he turns to his daughter’s boyfriend, who suspects a more supernatural explanation and has some experience in this realm because he once saw an elf. When he was young.

All this raises a very important question: who the hell would ever go to Peter Stormare for psychiatric help? Absolutely guaranteed to leave you more crazy than you began, that’s been his M.O since at least the early 90s.* But also, are we really supposed to seriously entertain the idea that this man is being menaced by a literal ghost? It sure doesn’t seem like it, especially since his best source of information on the subject is the goofy pothead boyfriend. It does have some interesting discussion of Swedish folklore -- the experience of sleep paralysis has long been known as “Mare” in that country’s legend-- but come on, I’m pretty sure we’re not meant to believe this is real just because some Swedish stoner (and not even an acceptably metal one) claims an elf sighting somewhere in his past. I mean, I saw Bjork once too, but I dunno man.

Not that the ambiguity is a bad thing, exactly -- the movie treats the haunting episodes very seriously, and has a nicely creepy aesthetic for them (the tooth-grinding noise is genuinely a bit rattling, expect to hear it ripped off in an American movie soon). You certainly believe Krister is traumatized by the experience, but from our perspective his story is more tragic than terrifying -- he’s a flawed guy grappling with his guilt and subconsciously projecting this turmoil into his dreams. There’s actually something kind of sweet and vulnerable about this closed-off, macho guy feeling so persecuted and cornered that he’s turned to some moron teenager in a desperate attempt to free himself. Yes, he looks ridiculous chanting and throwing seeds around to dispel the evil spirit, but it’s sort of sad, too. He’s so desperate that he’ll submit to the indignity of talking about elves and fairies, but he still can’t bring himself to look inward for an answer -- the stuff inside is just too painful.

No, no, happy trees!

So it’s an interesting and effective character piece, but as a horror movie it leaves a little to be desired. I think writer/director Filip Tegstedt is serious about making a real horror film --he personally financed the film by liquidating his assets and taking loans, in part as a protest to the Swedish Film Institute’s perceived failure to support the genre -- but unfortunately I think this particular scenario doesn’t make for a very effectively structured horror movie. Horror is all about escalation; it’s about drawing the noose ever tighter, forcing the characters into more and more desperate and frightening situations. This one starts off not very horrific, and then actually gets less horrific as it goes along, as we learn more about who this guy is and why he’s probably experiencing these things. An abrupt and mostly unsatisfying ending doesn’t help things -- and trying to shoehorn in one last scare to this mostly dramatic tale only serves to disrupt the genuine pathos that has been building with the family conflict. You always gotta appreciate an attempt at a horror film with real dramatic weight, but this one might have been wiser either focusing more on the scary stuff or just dropping it altogether and contenting itself with being a solid relationship drama.

But even though there’s plenty to criticize here, there’s a lot to like, too. The cast is uniformly strong -- both father, daughter, and boyfriend are smartly cast and expertly craft complex characters who feel quite at home in the movie’s universe. There’s a subtle streak of deadpan Swedish humor anchoring the slightly exaggerated tragedy to an earthy, likeable tone that keeps things from getting too grim and self-serious. And the incorporation of Swedish folklore and mythology into the horror genre gives it something fresh and interesting, even if its anthropological tone is maybe a bit at odds with the movie’s apparent desire to terrify (it also makes it an interesting comparison to this year's other interesting-but-too-uneventful Scandinavian "horror" film, THALE). So It’s not a total waste of time by any means. But I wish it were as sure-footed with its genre conceits as it is with everything else. Then we might really have something here.

*OK, I think he’s pretty normal in his tiny role as “young man” in FANNY AND ALEXANDER. But that movie is 312 minutes long and stars the entire population of Sweden at the time, so not a huge surprise that he didn’t get a chance to do his Peter Stormare thing quite as hard as he would in later films.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2014 CHECKLIST!

The Hunt For Dread October

• LITERARY ADAPTATION: No
• SEQUEL: No
• REMAKE: No
• FOREIGNER: Swedish
• FOUND-FOOTAGE CLUSTERFUCK: No
• SLUMMING A-LISTER: None, although it was nice they could get Stormare for this little movie. he even speaks his native language! But he's not in it much.
• BELOVED HORROR ICON: No
• BOOBIES: None... I don't think so anyway.
• SEXUAL ASSAULT: None
• DISMEMBERMENT PLAN: No
• HAUNTED HOUSE: This is a distinct possibility, or at least implied
• MONSTER: No
• THE UNDEAD: Yes, the titular characer
• POSSESSION: No
• SLASHER/GIALLO: No
• PSYCHO KILLERS (Non-slasher variety): No
• EVIL CULT: No
• (UNCANNY) VALLEY OF THE DOLLS: None
• TRANSMOGRIFICATION: No
• OBSCURITY LEVEL: High. Swedish indie horror.
• MORAL OF THE STORY: When you have a guaranteed living wage, free health care, and lots of easy-to-assemble furniture you have to get creative to find some problems in your life.
• TITLE ACCURACY: Marianne is a character in the movie.
• ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: Yes

This is pretty borderline, but it just didn't feel right to give it the same three thumbs I've been giving to uninspired genre junk. It has some strengths, just not horror. Call it B-. 

The Shrine

The Shrine (2010)
Dir. Jon Knautz
Written by: Jon Knautz, Brendan Moore, Trevor Matthews
Starring Aaron Ashmore, Cindy Sampson, Meghan Heffern, Trevor Matthews

Surprisingly, that's not a dark-haired expressionless Japanese schoolgirl under there.

When a pushy, unpleasant reporter, her reluctant boyfriend, and her wimpy intern pursue a missing persons case to a tiny village in Poland, things turn ugly after they encounter a creepy statue in the middle of  mysterious permanent fog. This Canadian indie horror film (financed by writer/co-star Matthews, who can afford it because his father is a telecoms multibillionaire) starts off nearly unwatchable, but slowly and torturously gets better until it finally crawls to a pretty decent climax. It has pretty much all the beats you’d expect from a film like this: hostile, culty locals, mysterious ancient evil, a couple EXORCIST ripoffs, generic demon masks, long scenes of actors running through the Canadian woods. But it occasionally has a good enough idea or two to justify it’s existence. I like the masks the cultists affix to people’s faces through judicious application of a huge sledgehammer, that’s a good image. I like the Pazuzu-looking statue that causes all the trouble, too. The plot doesn’t exactly go where you might expect, with the focus shifting from people you thought would be the main protagonists/ antagonists to an entirely different conflict by the end. And then there’s the climax, where our heros invade the home of a terrified Polish family who clearly knows more about what’s going on then they do. It features a nice twist on the usual formula by having our hero hearing the horrible things going on in another room but not being able to see it  -- but then forcing him to walk through the grisly aftermath anyway. So we get to imagine the terrible unseen things AND get some good gore -- best of both worlds!

Still, the movie is too indifferently directed to really ever completely overcome it’s slow start. Many potentially good scenes lack the visual polish they need to really come alive, and the atmosphere is anemic, failing to ever work up to a solid tone of dread or panic. The shot-on-video color-filtered overlit camerawork doesn’t help either; in fact, it really highlights some of the iffy acting (although Aaron Ashmore, as the boyfriend, manages to come across pretty well). Still, at least there’s not much shaky cam. Little favors, right?* Plus, I like the little post-climax epilogue, where the surviving hero finally asks a local just what the fuck is going on. The guy (who has never before spoken any English), hilariously responds, “This is curse. Left here on our land from long ago. It cannot be undone.” And that’s it! Real fuckin helpful, guys. Oh, it’s a curse. From long ago. That explains everything.

PS: Don't forget to check out Dan P's alternate take in ABBOT AND COSTELLO GAZE UPON THINGS NOT MEANT FOR HUMAN EYES IV: THE GAZENING.

*Although I don't see how they could have failed to set the credits to They Might be Giant's "The Statue Got Me High," perhaps forever throwing away the only possible cinematic moment that song would be applicable to. Maybe they couldn't afford the rights, though.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2012 CHECKLIST!

LOVECRAFT ADAPTATION: No.
BOOBIES: No time for love, Dr. Jones.
> or = HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS LEVEL GORE: Eye-gouging with a hammer, gotta hurt. Plus some slashings and disembowelings.
SEQUEL: No.
OBSCURITY LEVEL: High. Basically straight-to-DVD, with little fanfare.
MONSTERS: Tough one. There appear to be demons, but I'm gonna say no.
SATANISTS: Cultists, but I don't think Satan can be blamed for this one.
ZOMBIES: No.
VAMPIRES: No.
SLASHERS: No.
CURSES: Yeah, the Polish guy said so.
ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: N/A.

Hour of the Wolf

Hour of the Wolf aka Vargtimmen (1968)
Dir. Ingmar Bergman
Written by Ingmar Bergman
Starring Max Von Sydow, Liv Ullman

    Contrary to what I was led to believe before seeing this one, it is not “Ingmar Bergman’s werewolf film,” which I think we can all agree is a global tragedy and probably justifies cloning Bergman back to life and forcing him to shoot such a film. But, it’s not a total loss, because if you can get past the fact that there is no werewolf at all anywhere in here, it’s still one of those brilliant masterpiece sort of films you always hear about. What it actually is, is a frosty Swedish drama which gradually (and sometimes suddenly) dissolves into a surreal hallucinatory horror show.

    The plot concerns Johan (Max Von Sydow) a troubled artist and Alma (Liv Ullman) his quietly supportive wife. What’s troubling him is that he has horrible nightmares which have led to insomnia, which has led to a somewhat disturbed state of mind where he’s not sure what to make of the weird things that have been happening to him. What weird things would those be? Well, for instance, one day while he’s fishing this creepy little kid jumps on his back and tries to eat his face off so he has to smash him against a rock and throw him into the sea. That strike ya as odd enough? 

You light up my eyes

    The coolest thing about the film is it’s pacing. In the early scenes it’s glacial, frequently holding a single shot for an uncomfortably long time as some character walks up towards the camera from a far distance or holding still on the protagonists’ faces as they have a long, quiet conversation. It’s so bleak and sparse that it almost reminds me of Carl Dreyer’s VAMPYR or even JOAN OF ARC’s in its expressionistic minimalism. And it’s deep, creepy quiet. But then, suddenly, Johan and Alma are whisked away the the local castle, where a group of foppish old aristocrats assault them with a nigh-on violent cacophony of chatty entertainment. Johan’s obvious discomfort leads him to drink, which leads the camera on a wild and disorienting whirlwind around the table (I half expected the cast from That 70’s Show to turn up as Bergman oscillates around, staring into laughing faces). From there, things gradually get weirder and weirder and the surroundings get more surreal, until eventually they dress Johan up in women’s clothes and makeup and he feels up his dead girlfriend who’s laying naked on a shroud-covered slab in an empty room while a bunch of laughing freaks watch him and... well, you’ll have to see it. Suffice to say I think this Bergman guy has got some talent, I bet he has a pretty solid werewolf film in him somewhere.

Better keep an eye on it

    What does it all mean? I’m not really sure. It’s interesting that Johan is an artist, and in fact his work is a major plot point, despite the fact that the film deliberately (and frustratingly) never lets us see his actual paintings. I’m sort of leaning towards the film being about the anxiety of creation (with its obvious parallels to art, sexuality and children) but there’s a rich enough stew here that I bet you could come up with many equally valid bullshit explanations as to what it’s “really” about. To me, however, what specifically the symbolism refers to is a minor point next to the film’s enormous success at evoking the feeling of being anxious and alone in the hour of the wolf -- that last hour of night before the dawn, when the mind starts to consider fantastic and terrible things.

CHAINSAWNUKAH 2012 CHECKLIST!

LOVECRAFT ADAPTATION: No, but that would be awesome.
BOOBIES: Straight-up-full-frontal.
> or = HERSCHELL GORDON LEWIS LEVEL GORE: Von Sydow gets bloodied up by the end, but it's hardly gore.
SEQUEL: Sequel to HOUR OF THE CHIHUAHUA, Bergman's seldom-seen horror comedy classic.
OBSCURITY LEVEL: Well known to pretentious snobs such as myself, little known elsewhere. The fact that I saw it at Washington Psychotronic Film Society probably gives it some obscurity cred.
MONSTERS: We hear about some pretty freaky monsters, but never get to see them.
SATANISTS: No
ZOMBIES: Nope
VAMPIRES: No
SLASHERS: None.
CURSES: I don't think so.
ALEX MADE IT THROUGH AWAKE: Easily. For some reason this gorgeous, challenging classic film by one of cinema's greatest directors held her attention longer than, say, SLUGS.

Headhunters (Hodejegeme)

Headhunters (2012)
Dir. Morten Tyldum
Starring Askel Hennie, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau

    Vern, in his infinite brilliance, likes to compare genre films to Blues songs. Blues --maybe more than any other popular musical genre-- are rigidly structured in terms of style, texture, composition, and even content. All true blues songs are fundamentally the same, and yet some blues songs are forgettable background noise and others burn through your soul like your heart was pumping gasoline. It’s up to the individual performer to take the basic form of the blues song and make it their own, make it better, make it richer. They don’t accomplish this by getting creative and surprising you, they do it by milking the absolute most power possible out of the basic structure they’re exploring and giving it a part of their own unique humanity.
    
            Genre movies are like this too. Case in point, the little-by-our-standards-big-by-their-standards Norwegian chase thriller HEADHUNTERS (HODEJEGEME) which opens this weekend (yes, this coming weekend. I know people.) There’s not really anything in here that you haven’t seen done before, and done this well or better. But it’s got the fundamentals down to a fine art and has enough of its own unique personality that it works like a charm.

Askel Hennie (MAX MANUS, which sounds like a truly amazing porn but is actually a historical action film about Norwegian Nazi-fighters) plays the oddly-named Norwegian Roger Brown, a smarmy corporate headhunter by day and fine-art thief by night. He’s got to hold down two big-ticket jobs because he wants to spoil his much-taller and much-hotter wife who he’s worried would never have anything to do with him were he less than obscenely wealthy. Just as he’s getting over his head in debt, in walks Claus Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, GAME OF THRONES) an aggressive Dutch ex-military, ex-special-ops tracker, ex-mercenary ex-CEO who just happens to have an original Rubens painting in his Norwegian aunt’s apartment worth millions. Roger is worried about ripping off a guy who sounds like a Steven Seagal backstory, but he needs the money so he goes for the big score. Greve, whose massive technology company specializes in GPS tracking, is having none of it. And so the chase is on.

One nice thing the film has going for it is that it takes its time carefully laying the scenario out, but once Greve comes after Roger, it suddenly lurches into high gear. Most films would waste our time by coyly escalating things, letting Greve make a bunch of thinly-veiled threatening speeches, etc. Here, Greve just grabs a hunting knife and comes after him. It’s simple and visceral and I like it. We all know the structure of this blues song, so why be coy when we can cut right to the good stuff?  And once Greve starts coming, he simply doesn’t let up. So it’s this vain, effete art thief versus a relentless, ruthless manhunter. Roger knows he’s way out of his depth, and just books it halfway across Norway on a directionless terror-soaked adrenaline tear, with Greve always hot on his tail. 

There’s a nice blending of the shockingly brutal and the drolly comedic here, which suits the film very nicely. Roger isn’t exactly the most likeable film character in the world; he seems vain, opportunistic, disinginuous, insecure. But his punishment is so outlandishly over-the-top that you can’t help but laugh and feel for him a little. It helps that he looks like an exact cross between Steve Buscemi and Christopher Walken*, so he coasts on their goodwill a little. But there’s also something about the naked, childlike horror at all this in Roger’s face which tells us that he’s basically a nice guy. Sure he’s an asshole, but he definitely didn’t deserve this. He’s just an insecure little fellah, mostly harmless, who bit off way more than he could chew. We can all empathize with the fear of suddenly finding ourselves way over our heads, so you ultimately want things to turn out OK for him even though you know this is one of those arty European thrillers which will probably have him come to an ironically bad end. Like he survives everything only to be hit by a truck outside his house or something. You know the kinda shit they like to pull. Anyway, Hennie’s performance perfectly walks the line between making Roger too much of an asshole (in which case you wouldn’t care what happens to him) or too likeable (in which case you’d feel too bad for him to enjoy watching his predicament). So you can root for him and still enjoy watching him get shot, stabbed, run over, poisoned, bitten, covered in shit, etc (man, this guy is practically Rasputin!)

He's his own Quentin Tarantino cast!

                          

It’s rare for a thriller to consistently be both seriously tense and mordantly funny, but this one nails it. There’s plenty of creative action (all very nicely staged) and the film has a nice build to it, sustaining tension and creating a nice rhythm of wild terror and brief respite. On a few occasions, it gets a little too jokey (two morbidly obese twin policemen seem like they should be in a POLICE ACADEMY film) but mostly the tone has an almost Hitchcock vibe -- exciting and very lightly cheeky. Coster-Waldau (probably the best known in America out of the cast) is maybe a little less colorful than you might like from the villainous role, but he’s a credible threat and believable as a guy who has no compunction whatsoever about killing to get his way. Hennie, for his part,  is actor enough that when he’s called upon to be serious, he’s up to the challenge and can bring you along with him. So even when the plot seriously strains credulity, the two leads wrestle us back into caring.

As a blues song, it’s one of those ones which just works. I can’t seriously argue that it’s going to be an enduring classic, but it’s a rock-solid application of the conventions of the thriller genre. Those uppity Norwegians manage to squeeze the genre for all its worth, mining thrills, laughter, and even a little pathos out of a pretty by-the-book premise. Not that it’s completely predictable, either -- there’s one major red herring which took me, at least, delightfully by surprise. A little playful solo between the choruses. Like a blues song, the details may vary, but the fundamentals remain the same. You know basically how it’s going to play out, but that’s OK because the fun is in the actual playing out itself, not the end result. It’s not reinventing the genre. It’s just playing it for all its worth.  

The never said anything about shooting over spilled milk.

                            

*There’s also a theory that he looks like Buscemi and Conan O’Brien (but shorter) which would be even more appropriate given his old "If they mated" bit.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo (2011)

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2011)
Dir. David Fincher
Starring Daniel Craig, Rooney Mara, Christopher Plummer, Stellan “The Swede” Skarsgard

    I have a weird love of cover songs. Most people seem to get annoyed when they hear another version of something the already love, but to me its endlessly fascinating. I’ve made a long tradition of collecting covers, especially rare ones -- live versions of RATM covering the Clash, Nirvana playing “Smoke on the Water,” Willie Nelson covering Toots and the Maytals. They’re almost never better than the originals, due to the simple fact that the reason anyone knows about the original version to begin with is because it captured some kind of unique magic that made it memorable, made it work. A cover, even a very good cover, is unlikely to recapture that magic, recreate that particular balance, which is why most people don’t seem to like them all that much. They hear what’s not there, and it ends up a very frustrating experience in almost getting what you want. A tease, a persistent reminder of what you’re not getting. But to me, a cover is a fascinating look into the soul and the mechanics of a song -- its a scientific experiment in art, altering the variables and producing a different result. More than just revealing what worked about the original, it can sometimes emphasize different things, bring out hidden aspects of a work which lurk somewhere deep down in the original.

    An adaptation or a remake, at its best, does the same thing: it plays the same notes, but with a different flavor. But I have to admit, I couldn’t see the point in having David Fincher cover this particular song. Let’s face it: Stieg Larsson’s “Dragon Tattoo” novel is not exactly a classic masterpiece of literature. It’s a fun little thriller with some great ideas, but if we’re all going to be honest here I think we all know that it’s not a multifluously rich fount of humanity which we’re all going to revisit every few years and find that it takes on new meaning and offers up new secrets. It’s basically a trashy nazi serial killer mystery thriller with one truly classic character but enough plot for ten books, only one of which is really all that interesting. And it was already made into a perfectly servicable Swedish film not even two years ago, which did a pretty good job getting the goods out of the material. But, both the book and movie were profitable, and wouldn’t you know it, suddenly there’s a big expensive Hollywood version with big stars and a name-brand director. Funny how that works out. I mean, I don’t think Fincher really has it in him to make a bad movie, but it’s sort of hard to imagine this was completely a labor of love and when someone mentioned that it was probably a good business move everyone got all offended and asked indignantly how dare anyone sully the good name of this film by bringing up something as vulgar as money. 

But even so, it’s pretty good. If this seems a little more crass than remaking the equally unnecessary FRIGHT NIGHT, it makes up for it by being solidly classy across the board. And I can’t lie, the different flavors don’t combine quite as well for me as they did in the Swedish version, but at the same time they do exactly what I want a good cover song to do, which is change the balance of the recipe so new flavors emerge. 

For starters, I think it’s time we all got together as a nation and admitted that, all things being equal, Daniel Craig is somewhat more attractive and badass than Michael Nyqvist. I mean, Tom Cruise took Nyqvist down in that new MISSION IMPOSSIBLE movie (spoiler) and I’m pretty goddam sure that any fucking James Bond equal to or greater than Timothy Dalton could take Tom Cruise, so by the law of transitive badassery, Daniel Craig is at the very least four times as badass as Nyqvist (that’s right, do the math. Yup, Dalton outranks Roger Moore.) That alone gives the film a very different balance. In the Swedish film, Nyqvist is basically a dorky middle-aged journalist who looks kind of like a doughy, burnt-out version of Jason Bateman. In this one, he’s fucking Daniel Craig, so even though he does the same things he seems way more epic. You’d be interested in watching Daniel Craig do just about anything, even slowly typing on a macbook in his underwear. So, uh, happy birthday to you, I guess.

Rooney Mara as Lisbeth Salander, on the other hand, is way less Hollywood Epic than Noomi Rapace was in the original. Again, she does the same things, but her performance is more subtle. She acts more like you might imagine a person who has suffered the things that Lisbeth has suffered would act. She’s withdrawn, quiet, won’t look anyone in the eyes. Rapace was all ferocious tenacity in the role: She stares people down, while Mara won’t even look at them. They’re equally oblivious to the usual rules of social etiquette, but with Rapace it seems like an intentionally defiant way of showing how little she cares about their rules. With Mara it seems like she maybe has aspergers. It’s a good performance, but a different one. Also she has bleached eyebrows and bangs personally forged by the devil in the darkest pit of haircut hell, so she looks a little more like a creepy alien child than Rapace did. In the sense that I’m pretty sure that’s what the space baby from 2001 would have grown up to look like. And as realistic and damaged as Mara wants to play her, when she gets naked there’s no mistaking that she has the Body Of A Hollywood Starlet. Rapace was all gristle and sinew; Mara’s just a pretty girl with a bad haircut. 

Anyway, with a more charismatic Mikael and a less charismatic Lisbeth, the balance of power shifts a little bit. Lisbeth’s story is much more interesting, but you sort of want to watch Mikael because he’s fucking Daniel Craig. This makes the two stories a little more equal, but maybe not necessarily better, because even if Craig is a more compelling hero, you’d never really want to watch a movie about his story. Lisbeth is the film’s more dynamic character and story arc, but she’s a little toned down here, which makes her more realistic but also less fun to watch. Except when naked. 

Fincher works the story a little differently, too. For one thing, he begins with, of all fool things, this crazy fucking music video set to Trent Reznor’s version of fucking “Immigrant Song” whhhhaaaaaaaaaat? Sweden is indeed a land of ice and snow, but that’s about as much as that song has to do with the plot. It does, however, signal that Fincher is back in kinetic mode, zipping the film along at breakneck speed and cutting out everything he can. It also signals that this is gonna be a kind of goofy rock n’ roll production which tacitly acknowledges the pulpiness of the original material and has some fun with it. Yes, this grim Swedish tale of Nazi Misogynist Serial Killer Rapists is a pretty good time at the movies. For all his grim themes, Fincher has a oft-underestimated knack for putting a germ of human warmth into his serial killer films, and he succeeds here most completely by allowing us to like our protagonists. Lisbeth actually got some big laughs out of he audience I saw it with, and I think it’s both honest and Fincher’s intent. There’s something kind of adorable about Mara’s intense earnestness, and even though it makes her a little less badass, Fincher manages to make it endearing and vulnerable instead. And Daniel Craig is vastly more emotive and charming than Nyqvist ever was, making their somewhat ill-developed romance at least feel satisfying. Even Jeff Cronenweth’s photography is warmer than the stark blue-black of the Swedish version (hey, does this mean that Fincher Un-Sweded this film?) working in some rusty oranges, moss greens, and earthy browns. 

Fincher’s attempt to streamline things helps the movie zip along with only the things it absolutely needs, but there’s not much he can do to alleviate the central problem, which is that the whole murder mystery thing is essentially a giant red herring thrown into the middle of another, less interesting story. Writer Steve Zaillian (adapting the book instead of the Swedish film) spends more time on Michael’s legal problems and home life, which is sort of necessary considering the ending, but kind of unnecessary to anyone who wants to be entertained. He’s presumably more faithful to the book in including characters like Michael’s black sheep religious daughter, who in this version cues him in to the biblical clues. Only problem is, that even further cuts down on the interaction between Mikael and Lisbeth (the Swedish version has Lisbeth contribute this information), who are completely separate and off each other’s radar for literally half the film, with Lisbeth’s story more interesting but less important to the plot. The Swedish version wisely focuses on Lisbeth’s continued interest and meddling from afar in Michael’s life. Maybe less faithful, but it works better. 

Likewise, Zaillian cuts the murder mystery down to the bone, sparing us most of the complicated genealogy, red herrings, and possible suspects. It streamlines things, but also significantly lessens the impact of the mystery itself. Look folks, I don’t want to spoil this for you, but there are four recognizable names in the cast, and three of them obviously are not the murderer. And the way it plays here, Mikael figures the whole thing out himself, and Lisbeth kind of works as his secretary, doing the legwork on minor details. The poster puts Mikael up front, with Lisbeth behind him in the sidekick role, and that’s pretty accurate to the film’s presentation of them. It works fine, except that fucking Lisbeth is the sole truly classic creation in this whole damn work of fiction. 

I really believe that she’s a classic, unique, and potentially prototypical character (particularly as a female character) in the mold of great larger-than-life film colorful protagonists like The Man With No Name, Han Solo, Sherlock Holmes, even Jack Sparrow. So what’s the point of having her play second fiddle to some bland, hunky do-gooder journalist? He should be her foil, the Watson to her Holmes, her link to the world she’s otherwise too eccentric and extraordinary for. Would anyone give two shits about Mikael’s murky legal and personal problems if Lisbeth wasn’t around to add some electricity to things? Absolutely fucking not. The story is told from Mikael’s perspective to give us an in to her world. But it’s his perspective that’s important, not his story. I’m sure Zaillian faithfully adapted the book, but he would have been wiser to follow it’s intent, not it’s structure.

And so we’re left with a bare-bones murder investigation bookended by some 30 minutes of unrelated goop about Mikael’s life. It’s better integrated and more effective here, but is being better at the worst parts of the thing such a good idea? Zaillian has a long history of writing accurate and serviceable but sometimes meandering scripts like GANGS OF NEW YORK, AMERICAN GANGSTER, and wow, SCHINDLER’S LIST. Ok, so sometimes it works. But here I think he got caught up in adapting the story accurately, and got away from adapting the story’s heart accurately. I mean, the original title was “Men Who Hate Women” -- that’s the whole point of the narrative, and the central theme that ties Lisbeth’s rape, her mistrust, her vulnerability, and Mikael’s philandering together with the ongoing Nazi murders. But although all those elements continue to exist here, they simply don’t add up to any kind of coherent theme about misogyny. It’s just a bunch of stuff that happens because it’s in the book. 

The slavish devotion to the detail at the expense of the spirit leads to odd choices which never really pay off in any meaningful way. Case in point? The whole thing is still set in Sweden, but it’s a very awkward Sweden where everyone speaks in accents, but not necessarily Swedish accents, headlines are written in Swedish but documents important to the plot are written in English, and where the villains are Swedish but the Heroes are English. Would it have been too fucking hard to just set the thing in Canada or something? Would American audiences never have accepted that there are emotionally crippled nubile 20-something female hackers on this continent? 

So ultimately, this new adaptation is slicker, more fun, more structurally cohesive, and works better in nearly every way except for the only one which is really important. It does exactly what I was hoping it would do, which is change that delicate chemical formula and help better divine how the parts add up to a whole. But like a perfect cocktail, the beauty of it is in getting the ingredients to add up just so. You can tweak it and explore elements which were previously hidden, but you’re not going to quite get that magic that happens when it all works together. In this case, what you’ve got is a perfectly executed, technically proficient thriller, but I can’t imagine anyone watching it and understanding what all this Dragon Tattoo hoopla is about. It fails to quite realize on screen the elements which are so unique and special about the source material, and instead succeeds quite admirably at nailing the parts which are fine but not especially memorable. The Swedish version might be clunkier on some of the details, but look at the poster: there’s Lisbeth, staring right into the camera, daring someone to ask where Mikael is (hint: not anywhere on the poster). Swedish director Niels Arden Oplev is nowhere close to the technical master that Fincher is, but like a good documentarian he knows to put the interesting thing on screen and get out of its way. Fincher and Zaillian, for all their skill, could learn something from his focus. If you’re gonna cover a song, you gotta at least know why.

PS: Also, is that Julian Sands playing a young Christopher Plummer?! The fuck did he get in there?

Terribly Happy

Terribly Happy aka Frygtelig lykkelig (2008)
Dir. Henrik Ruben Genz
Starring Jakob Cedergren, Lene Maria Christensen, Danish Tom Sizmore

    TERRIBLY HAPPY is a Danish film about a tightly-wound Cop (Cedergren) who gets transferred to the boondocks of Denmark (the deep South, I guess it’s the same everywhere) for an initially unspecified fuckup in the city. It’s a close-knit community, and he’s an obvious outsider without enough context to quite be able to discern what the townsfolk are up to.  And they’re a colorful enough lot that they’re definitely up to something. There’s the town Tom Sizmore lookalike bully, his aggressively sexual wife, their creepy daughter, a Dennis Hopper lookalike with a big scar on his face, a manically grinning shopowner, the self-professed “town quack”. And then there are those people who recently disappeared but no one seems to be looking for. And that bog just on the outskirts of town with a truck parked in the center. Our boy plays it carefully, not really sure what’s going on but not oblivious to the fact that there’s more than meets the eye here. He’s not really sure what they’re capable of, and we’re not exactly sure what he’s capable of. But he keeps his wits about him and  tries to figure out what’s going on as the situation gets tenser and more potentially explosive. Then one day his cat tells him “Good morning”* and we realize this isn’t even close to the worst of it. 

    This is the first film I’ve seen in a very long time which can appropriately be called Hitchcockian (or Hitchcockionian, if you prefer) in the gleeful way it tightens the noose on its protagonist. Like Hitchcock’s best (but not like NORTH BY NORTHWEST. Fuck that one), it keeps tight control over its twisty, turny plot while at the same time maintaining a laser-like focus on keeping you entertained through a winning mix of imminent sexuality, boiling tension, and oblique black humor. It’s confidence in escalating the predicament of our lone cop is truly impressive, as it finds ever more devious ways of evolving into something different than you though it would be. Every time it seems like we’re getting the handle on the situation, some elegantly perfect new wrinkle emerges. It toys masterfully with our expectations and even our loyalties, shifting our sympathies between characters and gleefully setting up hidden moral trap for the unsuspecting viewer to walk into. It’s a wildly ambitious setup, but executed with such a diabolical confidence that it never seems pretentious or even arty -- just relentless.

    The style has been compared to the Coen Brothers, David Lynch, and I just compared it to Hitchcock. That may be overselling it slightly; for one thing, director Genz is not quite a visual master of that caliber, nor able to communicate as eloquently through pure cinema. But in terms of tone, those names are a good fit**. It successfully evokes the Coen Brothers’ sense of morbid fun mixed with dread, and Lynch’s ability to make the ordinary seem alien and horrific. It even has a little of Oliver Stone’s excellent U-TURN, with its protagonist trying only to get out of town but finding himself sucked inexorably in by his own flaws and the town’s grotesquely exaggerated denizens. No Indian Spirit guide, though. Maybe they’re saving that for the sequel? 

    The film is presented realistically, but there’s enough of a weird nightmarish quality to it that one might be tempted to speculate that there’s a metaphor of some kind lurking beneath the surface (or at the very least that it’s not meant to be taken entirely literally). At times its basically WAITING FOR GODOT with guns. The town is spartan almost to the point of absurdity, just a few bare buildings stuck in the center of a vast emptiness which stretches into the hazy distance as far as the eye can see in every direction. There’s a perpetually menacing steel gray sky lurking above them, listlessly oscillating between “about to rain” and “actually raining.” There’s a constant presence of the unseen outside world (the big city), always referred to but never actually seen, from which disruption can arrive with no warning and into which the elements of this closed world seem to mysteriously disappear. There’s obviously a plot brewing, but the more you see of it the more clear it becomes that it’s goals, and maybe even its composition, is more esoteric than criminal. Who the villains are and what exactly they want is always elusive without ever quite being outright inexplicable. Is it too much to wonder if maybe this is some sort of weird purgatory, a place where our hero is sent to test his moral fiber and perhaps to pay for his crimes? 

    To its credit, the film isn’t saying. Or even implying, really -- its willing to provide you a weird, creepy world and let you figure out what it means. It’s a little less confident about the plot, however -- occasionally it slips into the self-conscious habit of overexplaining to make sure you get all the details right. It’s all well-handled and it adds up rather nicely, but if there’s one thing that keeps it from being in the league of the Hitchcocks, Lynches, Coens, and Stones its that those directors would rather leave some questions unanswered than bring in a bunch of expository dialogue to muck up the simple elegance of an enduring riddle. The explanations are good, but the mystery is what we really savor. The true masters of tension understand that their job is to be in service to the mood, not to the specifics of plot. And the film is at its best when it does just that -- the classic sequence where two characters have a wordless duel of hard drinking, for example, needs no explanation other than the subtle changes of expression on the actors’ faces and the stylish but controlled aggression of the cinematography. What exactly are they thinking? We don’t know specifically, but we understand enough to fill in the gaps and appreciate exactly what the scene is going for. 

    I certainly appreciate what the film is going for. Its unique and ambitious, but even more importantly its simply a spectacularly efficient tension-building machine. Whatever it means, whoever you want to compare it to, I defy anyone to resist its looming mystery or fail to be drawn it at its relentless escalation. It’s a good reminder that a great story is all in the telling. What kind of world do we live in where the tribulations of a small-town Danish cop are a hundred times more gripping than 3 multi-million dollar films about giant fighting robots put together? In the words of another melancholy Dane (and TERRIBLY HAPPY is full of ‘em):' there's the respect that makes calamity of so long life'.
   

*Or “goodbye,” they point out that the colloquialism “mojn” can mean both.


**Funny enough, the film it probably most closely resembles in structure is HOT FUZZ. Uptight policeman gets transferred to small rural town to calm him down, only to find evidence of a creepy unspoken conspiracy amongst the townsfolk? FUZZ is so on the ball with its cop movie parodies that it actually beat the film it most closely mimics to the theaters by a full year.