LISBETH SALANDER, THE GUARDIAN ANGEL

I immediately liked that book character, that guardian angel called Lisbeth Salander, and I immediately recognized her when Noomi Rapace brought her alive on screen.

I liked that skinny, short, androgynous, intelligent, provocative, tattooed, full of piercings woman. I liked that hacker with her photographic memory, that stunning PI, that total outsider, with her crooked smile, her sad and deep gaze. I liked that tiny avenger, unconventionally dressed, her abrupt manners and her antisocial responses. I liked that tough cookie and her brusque behaviour, her recklessness and her rage, her silences, her pain, her isolation, her seeming lack of emotion, her questionable morality, her proclivity to snooping… I liked that flickering candle light!

I read Stieg Larsson’s trilogy “Millenium” as if thirsty and starving; greedy to go deeper and deeper into the life of Lisbeth, as I sensed from the start that this woman was extremely fragile, distrustful and that life had treated her bad.

That apparently flawed human being was what she was for something or somebody had made her that way.

Lisbeth – Lizbeth in Hebrew means devoted to God – could not have born like that; she must have been transformed into that by corrupt people, probably by men.

I am not going to disclose the story of Lisbeth. I am just trying to explain my fascination, my admiration toward her personality, trying to find out why she is one of the most intriguing book character of this massive success of Larsson’s trilogy, trying to understand why she is misjudged and stereotyped, though I can guess she is isolated because of her past and by her tag of mentally ill person. I am trying to check out why one can’t stop looking at her nor avoid following her in the book and on screen.

Let me add one word more to express my deep admiration for Noomi Rapace’s performance giving life to Lisbeth’s character. That talented Swedish actress worked and trained hard, and learned boxing and kick-boxing, she even went on a very strict diet to look skinny and anorexic and didn’t want any stunt woman in her fighting scenes.

The American remake of “The girl with a tattoo” staring Daniel Creig and Rooney Mara in the leading roles is coming soon, but Noomi was the first Lisbeth on screen and her performance will stay in our minds forever.