The Girl with the Dragon Tatoo

Serious Business Backup 4 replies 247 views
imex99's avatar
imex99
Posts: 4,927
Sep 7, 2010 7:04pm
Have you read the book series or watched the movie?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_with_the_Dragon_Tattoo

I'm about to watch the first movie and reading the 2nd book.

Middle-aged journalist Mikael Blomkvist, who publishes the magazine Millennium in Stockholm, has lost a libel case involving damaging allegations about billionaire Swedish industrialist Hans-Erik Wennerström, and is sentenced to three months in prison. Facing jail time and professional disgrace, Blomkvist steps down from his position on the magazine's board of directors, despite strong objections from Erika Berger, Blomkvist's longtime friend, 'occasional lover', and business partner. At the same time, he is offered an unlikely freelance assignment by Henrik Vanger, the elderly former CEO of Vanger Enterprises. Blomkvist accepts the assignment — unaware that Vanger commissioned a comprehensive investigation into Blomkvist's personal and professional history, carried out by gifted private investigator Lisbeth Salander.

Blomkvist visits Vanger on his estate on the tiny island of Hedeby, several hours from Stockholm. The old man draws Blomkvist in by promising not only financial reward for the assignment, but with solid evidence that Wennerström is truly the scoundrel Blomkvist suspects him to be. On this basis, Blomkvist agrees to spend a year writing the Vanger family history as a cover for the real assignment: To solve a "cold case" — the disappearance of Vanger's great niece Harriet some 40 years earlier. Vanger admits he is obsessed with finding out the truth of what happened to Harriet, and expresses his suspicion that Harriet was murdered by a member of the vast Vanger family, many of whom were present in Hedeby on the day of her disappearance. Each year on his birthday Harriet would make Henrik a present of pressed flowers. On his birthday every year since Harriet's murder, Vanger explains, the murderer torments him with a present of pressed flowers.

Blomkvist uproots himself from his life in Stockholm, moving to Hedeby in the middle of one of the coldest winters on record. Cold, depressed, and lonely, he begins the process of analysing the more than 40 years worth of information Henrik Vanger has obsessively compiled around the circumstances of the day Harriet disappeared. Hedeby is home to several generations of Vangers, all part owners in Vanger Enterprises. Under the pretext of researching the family history, and due to the small size of the island, Blomkvist soon becomes acquainted with the members of the extended Vanger family who are variously mad, uninterested, concerned, hostile, or aloof. Several are worried that Blomkvist is taking advantage of the obsession of a weak old man. The investigation of Harriet's disappearance approximates "the old Miss Marple closed-room scenario" with all the rich suspects marooned on the family estate on an island, "a village we grow familiar with, full of hostile locals peering out from behind their curtains".[1]

Blomkvist fulfills his contractual obligations by immersing himself in the case. Despite following endless dead leads, he eventually finds a series of clues leading to an ugly story of family secrets and brutal murder.
imex99's avatar
imex99
Posts: 4,927
Sep 7, 2010 7:05pm
[video=youtube;JlF-hk3IJQE][/video]
TBone14's avatar
TBone14
Posts: 6,383
Sep 8, 2010 4:54pm
Isn't the first movie in Swedish with English subtitles? I thought the making of the American version was still in the works.
imex99's avatar
imex99
Posts: 4,927
Sep 8, 2010 4:59pm
yes, its in subtitles on netflix streaming.

both movies are being shown at the drexel and every showing is packed: http://www.drexel.net/beta/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=22&Itemid=51

one of the current best selling books: http://www.nytimes.com/pages/books/bestseller/
ernest_t_bass's avatar
ernest_t_bass
Posts: 24,984
Sep 8, 2010 9:49pm
Synopsis?