Scene City #9: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Fincher, 2011)

Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy is a sensation in the literary world, a smart and riveting series of thrillers featuring a fascinating female protagonist by the name of Lisbeth Salander. She is unlike any heroine in contemporary entertainment; with her piercings, tattoos and goth wear, she is a damaged creature living in isolation within a system of violence.

Larson’s books were adapted to Swedish films with Noomi Rapace playing Salander. Her performance was mesmerizing, going deep into her darkness and yet, creating empathy for the character. In “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” she meets Blomkvist, the disgraced editor of Millennium magazine who has been hired to solve the disappearance of a teenage girl almost 40 years ago. Their quest will involve a killer of women.

Of course, this seems prime material for David Fincher, who has done his share of movies about violent men but his take on this material seems somewhat redundant and overdone. He piles on the darkness with a claustrophobic feel and an invasive soundrack by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross. This time Salander is played by Rooney Mara, creating a very different character from Rapace. Her Lisbeth is wounded and fragile, more victim than perpetrator and with a heavier emotional link to Blomkvist (played by Daniel Craig).

The movie starts with a brilliant title sequence that seems to conceptualize Salander’s inner violence (it also helps to have a rocking cover of “Immigrant Song” by Karen O and Reznor). But the energetic scene doesn’t reflect the rest of Fincher’s approach to the material. He keeps it surprisingly low key focusing on small and contained spaces and the dire and cold winter of Sweden. There are enough differences between the versions to avoid calling it a copycat (and some might argue that it’s a more complete adaptation from the novel). This version also changes the ending, and goes a bit heavy with its epilogue trying to tie everything neatly.

Fincher’s “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” isn’t one of his best efforts but it still shows great craftsmanship and as a thriller works very well. But, if one were to choose the better movie I’d go with the original (and its interesting sequels).

Scene City #8: Drive (Winding Refn, 2011)

He’s sometimes working at a garage, sometimes doing stunts for the movies and other times helping some dangerous folks but he’s mostly driving through the streets of LA. “Drive” is an existential action picture, one that goes through the motions of most genre films (dealing with the usual assortment of mafia stereotypes) but also one that sidesteps them by giving its hero a sense of cool detachment.

“Drive” is a cool movie, plain and simple. It has an electrifying soundtrack (by composer Cliff Martinez and featuring the catchy song “A Real Hero”), great performances (the most notable by Albert Brooks, playing his first role as a villain) and a bolstering directing style from Nicolas Winding Refn (one of the most exciting of European filmmakers, see “Bronson” and “Valhalla Rising”). In “Drive” his camera focuses intently on Ryan Gosling, playing a man of few words and controlled emotions but who’s capable of inflicting terrible acts of violence.

The driver (he isn’t given a name) lives in a lonely apartment next to a woman (played by Carey Mulligan) whose husband is in prison. He befriends her and her son and soon enough is entangled in a plot to help her husband once he arrives. But the details are almost collateral pleasures next to the sheer act of watching a movie of such marvelous control of tone. Once it’s over we kind of forget of the conventional plot points and remember specific scenes, like the driver’s first date, the explosive violence on an elevator and a sequence where he wears a stunt mask to stalk a mobster. Those moments burn in the memory and make the film into a sort of urban dreamscape of daring imagination.

“Drive” is one of the best movies of the year. It’s exciting and original and drenched in atmosphere rewarding multiple viewings.