23/09/2009

Out since September 18 in Scandinavia, the second instalment of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy, The Girl Who Played with Fire [+see also:
trailer
film profile], will be released this Friday in Italy by BIM. (The film’s Spain release is set for October 23).

The film’s connection to Italy is also in its production. Yellow Bird – one of Scandinavia’s most successful film and television production houses, which recently entered the German market with an office in Munich – is part of Zodiak Entertainment, the new company of Gruppo De Agostini, which coordinates all of Agostini’s production and distribution for TV and new media.

The Girl Who Played with Fire was directed by Sweden’s Daniel Alfredson (see director’s comment to Cineuropa), who took over the reins from Niels Arden Oplev. Alfredson also helmed the third episode, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest [+see also:
trailer
film profile].

The director seems to have added greater rawness to the thriller, with more vivid photography (by Peter Mokrosinski) that exalts the violent scenes, of which there is no lack in this successful trilogy (the first film has drawn six million viewers so far). The trilogy could even be the European answer to the countless North American thrillers centring on vicious serial killers.

The strength of the Millennium trilogy created by Larsson lies in its seriality and thus the public’s loyalty towards the writer’s well-constructed characters, which we got to know in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Niels Arden Oplev
interview: Søren Stærmose
film profile]. Economic-investigative journalist Mikael Blomqvist (Michael Nyqvist) and hacker Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace) are fascinating enough to create a strong bond with international audiences. The Scandinavian landscapes and setting render the thriller unique, and add to the coldness and distance featured in the most successful crime stories.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo left off with Mikael investigating a series of Nazi-related murders, and Lisbeth struggling with the sadism of her curator, who oversees her money because of violent problems in her past. A new, disturbing piece of the puzzle of Lisbeth’s childhood is revealed in The Girl Who Played with Fire (she comes across a member of her family who wants her dead) while Mikael tries to discovered who murdered his colleague from the magazine Millennium, who was investigating the prostitution market in Sweden.

The two stories intertwine and the two find themselves once again side by side in their modern war against violence, especially against women, which seems to be the theme uniting all three films.

(Translated from Italian)