The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Director – Niels Arden Oplev
Starring - Noomi Rapace and Michael Nyqvist

reviewed by Anne Ryan

Having very much enjoyed Stieg Larsson's Millennium Trilogy, I was keen to catch the film, before the inevitable Hollywood remake (latest rumour is that it will be directed by David Fincher of Seven fame and star Kirsten (Twilight) Stewart!). This fulfilled all my expectations – although it was a little too long, two and a half hours of Swedish subtitles can be heavy going. Reminiscent of television's Wallander with its sombre depiction of the underbelly of Swedish society.

'The girl who kicked the hornets’ nest' from the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson

Reviewed by Angelica Michelis May 2010

The final part of Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy starts exactly where the second volume has finished: Lisbeth Salander, the plucky and unusual heroine fights for her life after having been attacked by her father and mentally disturbed brother. Lisbeth, in contrast to the previous two books where she was always on the move and rarely remained at one place, is more or less stationary for the most part of this text. Lying critically injured in a hospital bed only a short distance apart from her father, Lisbeth (and with her the reader whose position, morally and politically, is right by her side) cannot relax knowing that her father’s determination to kill her will not subside as long as he lives, since too much is at risk. And since his destiny is deeply and inextricably intertwined with the conservative, reactionary and patriarchal forces in Swedish society, her fight for physical survival is also one of moral and social rehabilitation.

'The girl who played with fire' from the Millennium Trilogy by Stieg Larsson

Reviewed by Dave Bowden May 2010

Second parts of trilogies are notoriously hard work: by definition they are to some extent shorn of the structural unity offered by a clear beginning and an end. In a trilogy you are never more aware of the etymology of the term ‘plot’, which despite its exciting connotations of coups and insurrections, actually derives from cartography. Of course, an adventurer or explorer may observe that the most exciting journeys are those which have no direct course: but they’ll normally tell you that from the comfort of dry land. The success of a middle work lies in its unresolved uncertainty: C.P. Cavafy may urge travellers in ‘Ithaca’ to ‘pray that the road is long/full of adventure, full of knowledge’, but he wouldn’t be advising that if Odysseus had been swallowed by the Cyclops before he made it home.

Shaped by War: Photographs by Don McCullin

Imperial War Museum North, Manchester

Reviewed by Jane Turner May 2010

I am immediately a little sceptical whenever I hear the words “internationally acclaimed architect” as I spent many years living opposite some of the ugliest concrete housing ever designed by one such award-winning architect - the housing only lasted around 15 years before becoming inhabitable and getting bulldozed in a momentous expression of tenant power. The Imperial War Museum however, designed by Daniel Libeskind, is though destined to last a little longer. Clad in a suitably war-like colour of grey aluminium, it is designed to represent a globe shattered by war, conflict, and man’s self-destruction with three shattered shards forming the building representing earth, air and water and has been described as a “visionary symbol of the effects of war”.

Housed in the museum are some powerful exhibitions that reveal how war has shaped and affected the lives of British and Commonwealth citizens since 1914. A perfect setting therefore, for the work of Don McCullin, considered to be one of Britain’s greatest war photographers and acclaimed worldwide for his grainy black and white images captured at the heart of many dangerous conflicts and perilous areas of wars.