Little back, big tattoo

Luftslottet Som Sprängdes (The girl who kicked the hornet's nest)

Crit

I wonder how many girls and women (and, hell, why not boys and men?) are, even now, roaming the streets of America (and, with what, a 6-hour time difference, Sweden) in Lisbeth Salander Halloween drag? I like to think that if I dressed up for Halloween and weighed 90 pounds less, I'd be comfortable enough with my sexuality to embrace my inner Lisbeth.

In the almost action-free extended episode of Perry Mason that stands as the last of the Swedish film version of the trilogy (unless of course it becomes a tetrology after the uncovered 4th book is published), Lisbeth herself assumes Halloweenish Lisbeth drag, for the courtroom, inexplicably: a spiked fauxhawk that adds at least 10% to her low altitude, and lots of leather and rivets. This is apparently done with full knowledge and consent of her lawyer in what seems to be both a hearing to determine her mental competence and a trial for the attempted murder of her creepy father, and you assume that what's going to happen is that the next day she's going to appear as a scrubbed debutante, the point being that she has complete control over her image and thus the mind that crafts that image. But no, next day she's spraying up the spike again, and therein lies the main problem with the 2nd and 3rd installments of the trilogy, after the astonishing adrenaline of the first film ran out (and, I gather, of the print version as well): we're smarter than it is.

I'm not so sure we're smarter than David Fincher, though, so I'm becoming ever more eager to see his take. Dragon Tattoo, currently filming, with Rooney Mara and Daniel Craig heading a solid B-list cast (I mean that as a good thing), is due next year.