The day Stieg Larsson rolled around in the tomb
The name Stieg Larsson may not be so familiar to most people. This Swedish journalist, who spent most of his life denouncing extremists, racists and practitioners of violence against women, was the author of an successful books trilogy, which were turned into great films – but all this has taken a turn for the worse. with the movie “Millennium: The Girl in the Spider Web”.
Before we talk about this disastrous debut, let’s go back in time, when Larsson was still with us. Karl Stig-Erland Larsson was born in Sweden in 1954, and when he began to practice as a journalist, he devoted himself to investigations into political extremism in his country, Sweden. Having witnessed a collective rape when he was a teenage, Larsson created an extreme aversion to violence against women, which would mark his life forever.
It may seem strange that in Sweden, one of the countries with the best quality of life in the world, things happen that we only imagine in Brazil of brazen fascism of 2019, such as xenophobia, violence against women, racism, homophobia, etc. But as he reports in his first book in 2004, 18% of Swedish women have been threatened by men once in their lifetime, 46% have suffered violence by men, 13% have been sexually assaulted, and 92% who have been sexually assaulted do not file a complaint with the police.
This life of struggle against extremism never brought success to Larsson, and even gave him countless enemies who constantly threatened him with death. For this reason, Larsson never legally married his longtime partner Eva Gabrielsson, because under Swedish law, his address would have to be made public, which was a risk due to the threats they suffered.
His first book, “Men Who Did not Love Women” (“Män som hatar kvinnor”) was a resounding success, to the point of being the second most successful author worldwide in 2008. The other books in the trilogy, “The Girl Who Played with Fire” (“Flickan som lekte med elden”), and “The Queen of the Castle in the Air” (“Luftslottet som språngdes”), were equally successful. It is estimated that 80 million copies were sold worldwide, and one in four Swedes bought some of the trilogy’s book.
Unfortunately, Larsson did not live to enjoy the success of his books. He died of a heart attack at age 50, a possible result of a life full of stress, and bad habits of life. This happened shortly before the publication of the first book. After his death, and due to success of his books, there was a legal dispute over the rights of his work, and Larsson’s father and brother got the better of it. Larsson left much of an unfinished fourth book, which was in possession of Eva Gabrielsson.
The books were adapted for the cinema in a Swedish version, covering the three books, “Män som hatar kvinnor”, SUE, 2009), “The Girl Who Played with Fire” (“Flickan sound lekte med elden “, SUE, 2009), and” The Queen of the Castle in the Air “(” Luftslottet som språngdes “, SUE, 2009).
Although of modest production compared to Hollywood, the trilogy made a relative success, and launched on the world market actors Michale Nyqvist and Noomi Rapace. Later, in 2011, an American remake was made with Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara, “Millenium: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo”, USA, 2011).
Both the Swedish and American versions maintained a good fidelity to the original text, and kept the public’s interest in Stieg Larsson’s work. After winning the dispute with the companion of Larsson, his father and brother ceded the rights for the continuation of the works.
Writer David Lagercrantz was hired to continue the work of Larsson, having already published “The Girl in the Spider Web” (“Det som inte dödar oss”) and “The Man Who Wanted His Shadow” (“Mannen som sökte sin skugga” ). These books are reasonably well written, and the characters retain their characteristics, but the text lacks Larsson’s elaborate, refined style, which is already a demerit.
And as it said that there’s nothing so bad that can not get any worse, the movie “The Girl in the Spider’s Web” was made in 2018. The film, in theory, is based on the fourth book of the Millennium series, the first of Lagercrantz. However, what we have seen on the screen has little to do with the literary work, either Larsson or Lagercrantz.
Despite being shot in Sweden, and having the same characters, it seems to be something totally different. First of all, the movie is totally spoken in english. In the original trilogy, Mikael Blomkvist was a fifty-year-old hardened by a stressful life, work-obsessed, unrelated to relationships, and with an indestructible ethic – the very alter ego of its creator, Larsson himself. Lisbeth Salander, in her turn, was the result of a life of abuse and domestic violence, developing physical and mental abilities that made her unique. Her greatest enemy had always been her father.
What we see in the movie “The Girl in the Spider Web” is a totally different version. To begin with, the story is very different from the book. So far so good, this happens when you fit a book into the movies. But the characters seem to have come from another work. Mikael Blomkvist is no longer a man in his fifties, but someone just a little older than Lisbeth. His role in the film is completely null, unlike the first works, where the two were harmonized in a perfect symbiosis, with their defects and qualities complementing each other.
The plot is all centered on Lisbeth Salander (Claire Foy) who was transformed into a female version of Jason Bourne. It was introduced a childhood with sexual abuse by the father, who does not even happen in the work of Larsson. The character’s behavior seems so preposterous that crossing a river by motorcycle seems to be the least problematic. The English actress, Claire Foy, has the charisma of a refrigerator door, and can not transmit any veracity to the role.
What it seems is the investment in a new character of the cinema for action movies, totally dissociated from the original work, and that will appear many times from now on. Maybe it will be based on Lagercrantz books, maybe not. What is certain is that it has been created another slot machine character, of those that so much infest the cinema nowadays. Watch it at your own risk.