(Swedish with English Subtitles)

Once again, my beautiful editor in chief of Agenda Magazine hands me yet another assignment to review a foreign movie called The Girl Who Played with Fire.  Of course I agreed to do so.  This movie is based on a novel, The Girl Who Played with Fire by Stieg Larsson.  He is no longer among the living. Of course, his grungy and innovative works will continue to passionately and emotionally affect everyone.  There is no doubt that the Stieg Larsson holds up a mirror in front of the face of a true life, using his life experiences as an excellent observer.

The director, Daniel Alfredson, and screenwriter, Jonas Frykberg, achieved an interesting interpretation of the novel’s gritty realism about the human trafficking sex trade.  Actress Noomi Rapace plays Lisbeth Salander, a tom-boyishly attractive brunette lesbian who is haunted with physical and mental anxiety attributed to the way her father abused her mentally and physically as a child.  As a young girl, Lisbeth Salander was institutionalized, and of course, as foreshadowed, she was abused by the system as well.  With no other choice, she tries to find answers as well as revenge.  This movie has lots of very graphic, intense yet subdued action.

The girl Who Played with Fire Poster

Cinematography?  Nothing exceptional here but technically executed.  All of the supporting actors and actresses committed emotionally and passionately to their roles and contributed successfully to the emotional  rhythm of the movie, especially the two lead actors, Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist, who played Mikael Blomkvist, the passionate  journalist who believed that Lisbeth Salander was not the vicious psychotic murderer that the authorities were convinced she was.

I did have a few issues with this film, however.   The subtitles were sometimes difficult to read because the text was washed out due to having the same color in the background.  This happened frequently, forcing me to use common sense and individual knowledge of text and conversation to follow the story.  I also took issue with the lesbian scene.  The girl on girl action felt somewhat physically forced by actress Noomi Rapace.   The implied sexual longing between Lisbeth Salander and Miriam Wu, played by Yasmine Garbi, was convincingly better.  Both actresses were physically and mentally desirable.  I applaud director Daniel Alfredson and Stieg Larsson for tackling this project.  Human trafficking is a real problem around the world; and hopefully by showing it in movies, it will be resolved before our daughters and sons are thrust upon that surrealistic world of The Girl Who Played with Fire.

I give this film six seraphim out of seven for its passion and emotional content and less one seraph for a few technical and misguided editing decisions.  Intelligent and thought-provoking, The Girl Who Played with Fire was definitely a positive intellectual experience as well as an eye-opening emotional roller-coaster ride for this moviegoer.