Film: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo
Director: Niels Arden Oplev
Genre: Crime/Mystery/Thriller
This Crime/Thriller is based around the female heroine Lisbeth Salander - an antisocial but intelligent computer hacker and researcher. Her physical appearance is quite dark and masculine, as she has short black hair with shaved sides and facial piercings, as well as tattoos on her body which is thin and not particularly feminine. I will analyse how this female character is represented in this thriller as we are producing a film trailer with a thriller genre that features a female as the main character.
The trailer starts with ashot of the back of Lisbeth with her hood up, walking down a subway - a lonely and dark figure. This cuts to her sat in front of a computer and typing quickly which links to her job as a computer hacker and researcher. This then cuts to a scene of Lisbeth punching a man in the face and him falling to the ground, highlighting her strength and masculine traits as the heroine of the film. This then cuts to a shot of a large tattoo of a dragon on a female's back with the voice over saying ' I have to warn you, Lisbeth is a kind of special girl'. At this point, the non-diegetic music of the trailer becomes a bit more sinister and fast-paced.
Lisbeth is then shown to be riding a motorcycle which is a typically masculine form of transport. Her dresscode is very dark and unfeminine. She wears mainly black clothing - jeans and leather jackets all the way through the trailer which highlights that her dresscode represents that she is quite an interesting and dark character with a sinister past. Despite appearing quite masculine, Lisbeth is shown to use her sexuality a a couple of point in the trailer, implying that she has quite a feminine and 'sexy' side to her when mainly being quite reserved, serious and at times violent. In the trailer there is a point where an older man is stood over her, stroking her face and talking about her psychological problems and 'violent past'. This is the first point where you see her character as weak and subdued as this man seems to have authority over her. This scene then cuts to her turning round as if she is about to hit the person that is walking towards her, which regains her image as being strong and independent.
It is only at the end of the trailer that you see Lisbeth speak directly, although you hear her voice during the trailer as a non-diegetic voiceover. The last scene of the trailer shows her lying in bed with a male voice saying 'You know everything about me and I know shit about you', to which she replies 'Nope, that's the way it is.' This adds a lot of mystery and suspense to the trailer as you then want to find out more about Lisbeth's past and why she is the way she is as the trailer hints a troubled background.
Overall, the way Lisbeth's character as a female heroine of the film is represented in quite a masculine way. Her dresscode and fairly androgynous look with her piercings, tattoos, short hair and manly clothes portrays her to be a mysterious and haunted character with an interesting back story. As a female protagonist in a thriller film, Lisbeth is quite stereotypically masculine, which may also be a representation of her sexuality as she is a lesbian. She rides a motorcycle, wears dark clothes and is seen to be very strong and violent at times in the trailer which are typically a male's characteristics in films of the same genre. This indicates that as a female main character in an action and thriller film, Lisbeth takes on masculine traits to make her seem more tough and self-supporting. She does not act like a typical representation of a female in an action film which is the 'damsal in distress' role who depends on the male character to help her. This is what we aim to do in our own film trailer, by representing our own female character as strong, independent and aggressive with a masculine appearance and characteristics to highlight her extreme transition from a weak and quiet young girl to a tough and violent thug.
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