The Girl Who Played with Fire

Daniel Alfredson’s film is where the trilogy changes hands. Niels Arden Oplev directed the first one from a script by Nikolaj Arcel and Rasmus Heisterberg; here the camera is Alfredson’s and the script Jonas Frykberg’s. One member of the cast is himself. Paolo Roberto, a Swedish former professional boxer and television presenter, appears as a character in Stieg Larsson’s novel and plays his own part in the film. There is also a longer version. The three films were recut with extended scenes into a six part television series; SVT1 in Sweden showed it in spring 2010, while in France Canal+ ran it before the second and third films opened in cinemas there. That SVT and ZDF version won the International Emmy for television movie and miniseries in 2011. The cinema version went home empty handed. At the 45th Guldbagge Awards the cinematographer Peter Mokrosinski was nominated and Hoyte van Hoytema took the prize; the film was also up for the audience award, which went to the previous Millennium picture. A good fit if you want the weight shifted onto Lisbeth’s family and her past, and care enough to hunt down the long television version. Not for a viewer expecting a sequel where Blomkvist and Salander work side by side; here they chase the same killings from separate ends.