Land of Long White Cloud & Girl with Dragon Tattoo

6pm - The Land of the Long White Cloud

Film maker Florian Habicht gets up close and personal with the surf-casters on Ninety Mile Beach in his latest celebration of life in the Far North. Land of the Long White Cloud premieres on Saturday July 25 at the New Zealand International Film Festival in Auckland.

Habicht describes his latest expose of the recreational habits of Northlanders as a ‘sequel of sorts’ to his classic Kaikohe Demolition.

Claimed to be the largest surfcasting event in the world, the annual Ninety Mile Beach Red Snapper Classic attracts hundreds of anglers for five days every February to compete for prizes in excess of $250,000, with the biggest snapper taking out a serious $50,000.

Habicht joins them, camera in hand, full of questions about what they might be thinking as they engage in this elemental and apparently very relaxing pursuit. How will they spend the prize money? Do they believe in an afterlife?

Habicht relishes the individual flavour of every frank response. There are interludes of boisterous carousing, grueling scenes of snapper Passion, and long and lovely shots of the long and lovely beach. The amiable atmosphere of tolerance and unpretentious philosophising is so salty and true and rousing that you could bottle it, call it Kiwiade, and sell it by the crateload to homesick expatriates. — NZ International Film Festival Director Bill Gosden

8pm - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

Based on the first of the popular Millennium trilogy books by Swedish author Stieg Larsson, this adaptation sees Michael Nyqvist playing an idealistic Swedish journalist Mikael Blomkvist who’s called in to investigate a family crime.

Blomkvist’s just lost a libel case and has plenty of time on his hands - so he’s drawn into the disappearance of a 16 year old niece of a wealthy CEO from 40 years ago.

As Blomkvist digs deeper, he’s followed by a cyber hacker Lisbeth Salander (Rapace) who believes she has what it takes to help him solve the case.

However, as the case progresses, there are more skeletons in the closet waiting to come out - and both parties have plenty to lose as their respective nooses tighten.

The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is a slow burning thriller - despite the beauty of the desolate white Swedish landscapes, there’s very little beauty in the thick complicated plot. And in Lisbeth’s case, thanks to abuse and some pretty horrific scenes, the darkness is as black as it comes.

It’s that darkness which may scare some off - it’s not an easy watch. But it’d be wrong to write off the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo - it’s a challenging and complex film which requires a depth of intelligence from its viewers to keep up.

Both Nyqvist and Rapace are good in their morally complex roles - you are never really 100% sure who’s to be trusted and who you should be cheering for - in fact Lisbeth’s character may end up polarizing some even if she is an anti-heroine in the style of the Sopranos - but it’s these flaws and foibles which make The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo compelling to watch.

The ultimate denouement (which finally comes after a mammoth 150 minutes) leads to a clutch of unanswered questions. It’s these which may tempt you back to rewatch the film to see if there’s anything you’ve missed - and, to say the least, the door appears to be well and truly open for the second and third books to be made into films.

Nyqvist and Rapace make odd bedfellows and an uneasily odd partnership - however, if both are on board for the sequels, I’ll be back to see how this trilogy pans out.