Just watching the excellent 9 hours long TV version from Sweden (plus a few hours of bonus features later on :)).
In the first movie in part 2 at 74 minutes Mikael Blomkvist supposedly flies to Australia and gets a rental car. There is one scene which looks a lot like King's Canyon in the Northern Territory of Australia, but imdb says it was filmed in Spain. I wonder where in Spain?
Does anybody know?
I'm a huge fan of the Millennium Trilogy myself, and they actually rerun it on SVT (Sveriges Television) right now. I missed the last part however, I was watching 'Happy Valley'. But switched channel just as Mikael lands in Australia, where he meets Harriet.
I knew that the Australian scenes were filmed in Spain, but I didn't know where and what city, so I googled. And actually found on a travel site, but in Swedish of course, which I ran through Google Translate;
A Fistful of Dollars and others: Almeria, Spain
The Andalusian town became a name on the film map when Italian directors realized that you don't need to travel all the way to Mexico or the United States for an authentic western setting. Among them are Sergio Leone's films with Clint Eastwood starring the most famous. But the list of films shot in and around Almeria is long. Lawrence of Arabia, Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Conan the Barbarian to name a few. And when Mikael Blomqvist travels to Australia at the end of the film version of Men Who Hate Women, it's in fact Almeria the film crew travelled to.
http://nyheter.destination.se/2321/res-i-filmernas-fotspar
Hi beja-4,
Thank you so much for finding that information. I've heard about Almeria in Spain before, just didn't realize that it has an area which resembles Australia's King's Canyon!
Stockholm (especially gamla stan) and Trosa are so beautiful, we've been there 2 1/2 years ago. At that point imdb did not yet have as much filming locations listed, only the adress of Lisbeth Salander's first apartment. So we took the tunnelbana and went there.
Meanwhile Stockholm even offers Millennium walking tours!
What I missed most in the books while reading the trilogy were Stockholm street maps. But I fortunately found a book via public library about Lisbeth Salander and her philosophy which contains 5 or 6 maps of different parts of the city of Stockholm (however, not one map of Gosseberga, Goeteborg (sp?), Mikael Blomkvist's summer cabin etc).
Cheers,
Chrissie
[deleted]
Hey Chrissie, you're most welcomed! That's so nice to hear to you've been in Stockholm and taking the tunnelbana (you've learned!) to Lisbeth's apartment on Lundagatan! The fancy apartment is on Fiskargatan 9 http://i.imgur.com/FHGrhx6.jpg That's quite a view over Stockholm!
Yes, after the Trilogy, it was a real boost for the Stockholm tourism, and people flocked to join the guided tours where Millennium had taken place. I never went along though, since I knew the places pretty well.
But you really made an effort to keep up with the streets and places, I'm impressed :) I live just outside Södermalm, but I'm actually born and raised in Gothenburg, and that is Göteborg in Swedish :) Gothenburg is Sweden's second largest city, so it's odd that you didn't find any map. But your post made me so curious (again!) about Millennium and I checked the book and this is what Malin at the Millenium says:
"No, but I've traced Karl Axel Bodin. He's registered in western Sweden and lives at the address Mailbox 612 in Gosseberga. I looked it up, it seems to be an agricultural property near Nossebro, north east of Gothenburg"
But there is no such place called Gosseberga, that's a made up name, same with Hedestad. But Nossebro is for real, I know that because I once was on a riding camp there, when I was 11 years old :) I think my mom thinks it was the best investment she's ever made, it was minus 30 degrees Celsius and we got to ride bareback, but mostly shovel manure, haha.
But when Lisbeth is sitting in the car in The Fire, she's in Gothenburg, I recognise where she is. Same with Sandhamn, where Blomkvist has his summer cabin, it's a beautiful place in the Stockholm archipelago. If you plan to come back, that's one of the places you would love, during summer.
Yes, Stockholm is beautiful and Gamla Stan is as well. But you've been to Trosa! That's an odd destination, but I've been there too, it's such a sweet little village...!
Anyway, to me this is just fun, so I thought I would give you some maps, to show you where the different places are. This is Sandhamn, the red marker, in relation to Stockholm, and I've also marked Trosa; http://i.imgur.com/jGo8fhl.png And here's Göteborg (Gothenburg), and somewhere in our imaginations there's Gosseberga near Nossebro, the red marker (but it's too small); http://i.imgur.com/QIvO3yx.png :)
I hope you will come back, because there's a lot to see! Take care!
Beja
Hi Beja,
How lovely to hear back from you :)!
Stieg Larsson's trilogy was not the major reason for our 6 days in Stockholm and Trosa (we stayed at the Sheraton Hotel on Tegelbacken...I think it's even mentioned in one of the Stieg Larsson books...and overlooked Gamla Stan from our window wondering about those two old towers and Wrangelska Palace which is in-between the towers, so we went there to explore them).
Since the mid 1960's when I grew up in Germany, I was and still am a big fan of the three old Kalle Blomkvist movies (1947, 1953 and 1957) based on Astrid Lindgren's Blomkvist trilogy (which I've read many times in my life, the last time shortly before that Stockholm trip in May 2014).
To make a long story short, I just fell in love with the filming location's of "Mästerdetektiven lever farligt" (1957) (Master Detective Blomkvist lives dangerously)and even got in touch with the Svenska Filminstitutet (hope I didn't misspell it) in order to find out the correct filming locations way back in early 2014.
I already wrote to Astrid Lindgren around 1983/1984 to inquire where "Mästerdetektiven lever farligt" was filmed and she was so kind to answer me and also forwarded my inquiries to the movie production company who told me it was filmed in Trosa. The other two movies were filmed in Sala and Vaxholm. As we had no real idea where exactly in Sala and Vaxholm it was filmed, we skipped going there :(.
So on a very cold early May day in 2014 we went with our rental car from Stockholm to Trosa to take pics from the filming locations (especially the yellow ginger bread house which I recognized right away and from several of the bridges that you can see in the movie).
I was pleasantly surprised that in Trosa time stood still, everything along the little river just looks like it did in the movie :).
In a bookstore next to the bridge and the town hall I was able to purchase postcards and a big book (coffee table book) on Trosa. But the best photos of the river were available on postcards. I must have bought close to 50 postcards, sent some to friends and family and kept most of them as bookmarks for my Astrid Lindgren book collection.
I'm also trying in amazon.de to persuade the German Astrid Lindgren DVD label to finally release the three old black & white Kalle Blomkvist movies, but so far no luck :(
Unfortunately these movies were remade some 15 or 20 years ago and now the old ones (which have a lot more suspense and atmosphere!) are of no interest to the German label any longer :(.
Anyway, we went to Lundagatan in Stockholm and took pics, but did not know way back then about the second much fancier Lisbeth Salander apartment on Fiskargatan which was added to the imdb shortly after we were back in the US.
Also I do wonder if Lisbeth Salander was not inspired by Eva-Lotta Lisander from the Kalle Blomkvist trilogy? After all Mikael Blomkvist is inspired by Kalle Blomkvist.
Most of the time I read that Pippi Langstrumpf/Pippi Longstocking inspired Lisbeth, but I kind of doubt it.
BTW Soedermalm was already mentioned in the very first of the three Kalle Blomkvist books where Eva-Lotta's uncle stays at her parents' house and Kalle discovers a newspaper article on a robbery which took place in a house in Soedermalm.
In Lindgren's Saltkrokan book Strandvejen (sp?) in Stockholm is mentioned and one day we took the street car to take a boat to the Photography Museum and I noticed Strandvejen.
Gothenburg sounds rather German (like Rothenburg-ob-der-Tauber). I always believed it was called Goeteborg in Swedish.
No, I could have checked Google Maps of course. What I was trying to say is that I was a bit disappointed that the book on Lisbeth Salander's Philosophy had only 5 or 6 Stockholm street maps and no Sweden maps for instance for Goeteborg/Gothenburg.
Interesting story about your riding camp!
I went to a camp when I was 11 (in the fall school vacations of 1966) at the Baltic Sea/Ostsee where they showed us the western "High Noon" with Gary Cooper on a big movie screen in the main tent one afternoon. The camp was a great experience, it was right on the beach in Lenste, Germany.
Actually we wanted to see the two islands used in the TV series "Saltkrokan", but it was too difficult to get there and the schedule was kind of questionable as it was still early May and we couldn't reach anybody on the phone, so in the end we never went to the Schaeren islands how the Stockholm archipelago is called in German.
Did you ever read Val McDermid's crime novel "A Place of Execution"? It was published in 1999 and as Stieg Larsson mentions Mikael Blomkvist reading several Val McDermid novels, I realized how similar the Harriet Vanger murder case from Hedestad is compared with the murder case in "A Place of Execution". Maybe it inspired Larsson to write his first Millennium novel?
What do you think?
"A Place of Execution" was also filmed by British TV and I actually like their ending better than the book's ending.
I over-react to mosquito bites plus never was a summer person (not heat-resistant), that's why we went to Trosa and Stockholm in early May to make sure there won't be any mosquitoes or heat yet. It was so cold that we needed to wear woolen hats :)!
Two weeks later on that same trip to Europe when we were exploring the Channel Islands between UK and France, we could sleep with the balcony doors open on the isle of Herm. It was very mild.
My best friend's husband Wolfgang (Tatiana and Wolfgang live in Luebeck, my favorite town in Germany) does a lot of sailing and goes to Sweden once a year. He's doing that for many years and has Swedish friends. As they have a collie, Tatiana stays at home with their dog. Wolfgang was rather disappointed that we chose to go to Trosa. I explained why Trosa was since the early 1980's on my wishlist of trips, but he still said there are much nicer places to explore in Sweden. Well, I thought it was very beautiful. Especially at that time of the year with no tourists around...
Yes, we will come back to Sweden one day. Hopefully!
I also would like to visit another filming location from a Ingmar Bergman movie which I enjoyed years ago: "Beröringen" aka "The Touch" (in German "Berührungen") with my favorite Swedish actress Bibi Andersson. It was filmed in Visby on Gotland and we checked out the possibility to fly there from Stockholm (the ferry takes too long, we would have needed to stay over night on the island), but it was too difficult to realize. Hopefully next time.
Did you ever read the Millennium sequel by David Lagercrantz? What's your opinion?
Thank you so much for the links to the maps, I will print them out and put them in my Larsson books (once I'll have ordered them via amazon.com).
I just finished reading them in English from our public library, they were a wonderful reading experience even though I noticed several translation errors.
That's why I was wondering if I should purchase the German translations instead? But I doubt you could give me any advice on that. I thought maybe the translator did a better job from Swedish into German?
Tatiana's husband read them in Swedish. He cannot tell me if the German version is flawless.
Thank you for your long and thoughtful e-mail, I really enjoyed very much reading it and answering it. Yes, it's fun.
Best wishes from Massachusetts,
Chrissie
Hey Chrissie, it's nice to hear from you too! And it's nice to read about your interest in Swedish authors and your childhood favourites!
But I must admit that I haven't seen any of the Kalle Blomkvist films, or read the books. I just asked my ex and he said; "did Astrid write Kalle Blomkvist?" LOL. Not sure why I haven't seen them since I'm familiar with almost every other character Astrid invented, still love both Pippi Långstrump and Emil. I guess I was too young. But it's quite amazing to read about your admiration for the characters and calling Svenska Filminstitutet (yes, you spelled it right, ha) to find out about the filming locations.
I'm impressed with that you even wrote Astrid, and I'm not the least surprised that she would answer you back, always very concerned about her fans. She was an amazing woman, and had a heart of gold. There was a three parts documentary by SVT a year or two back, called "Astrid" by Kristina Lindström, and it's an amazing story of her life. I think you could actually find it on Youtube, or check SVT, although I'm not sure it's subtitled.
Yes, Mikael Blomkvist is obviously inspired by Kalle Blomkvist, but I don't think Lisbeth is inspired by Eva-Lotta Lisander, more than the name perhaps. I think it's about Pippi Långstrump. During Stieg Larsson's time at TT (the news agency), he often discussed pop culture with his boss Kenneth Ahlborn. They agreed to each write a book about how it'd go for the books' young heroes when they became adults. And Larsson's choice was to write about what happens to Pippi, when she's in her 20's.
I've read many articles about Larsson and his "sambo" Eva Gabrielsson, and she says the same thing. Salander even has the name "V. Kulla" (Pippi's house Villa Villekulla) displayed on the door of her apartment on Fiskargatan. But I guess, what most people don't know, is that his niece Therese was another inspiration. A young rebellious girl who always dressed in black and had spoken with Larsson that she wanted a tattoo – not surprisingly – a dragon. But Therese reluctantly talks with the media, since she says they often give a totally wrong impression of who Stieg Larsson really was.
I think I made a mistake about Gothenburg, which is the English name of the city, and Göteborg in Swedish. The name originates from that the city was fortified at the Göta Älv (river) - and "min borg är mitt hem" - "my fortress is my home".
Haha, my riding camp was terrible, and my bum was sore for weeks. It took quite some years after that, until I was nagging about go riding again, hence the best investment on my mother's part :) But seeing Gary Cooper on a big screen in 1966 must've been something special :) Sounds like a really great experience.
But Saltkråkan I do know of and I loved it! They still rerun it here occasionally, and kids love it. Yes, it's Strandvägen, and one of the most expensive streets to live on in Stockholm. But it's kind of sad that you didn't get to see Saltkråkan. It's the islands Norröra and Söderöra where the series is shot, though most of it is on Norröra. I have a friend who has a summer house on Söderöra, and I've been there a couple of years back, and it's beautiful! I didn't see Tjorven, Stina or Melker though :) I guess that's another thing for you the next time you'll visit.
No, I haven't rad anything by Val McDermid, but I recall that Blomkvist did. I'm quite sure that Larsson "stole" a lot of stuff from other books and what you say about McDermid, it's most likely one. He's hardly known for being a virtuous among authors, and his expositions and level of details can sometimes be a bit too lengthy. But he knows how to build up a tension. I mean, last year the Trilogy had sold in more than 60 million copies!
Oh Bergman and Gotland, you just have to see Gotland and Visby, "the city of roses"! It's a beautiful place and while you're there, visit Fårö, only a couple of Swedish mil from Visby and the island where Bergman lived. It's quite a long time since I saw any of his old films, but Bibi Andersson is an amazing actress. Bergman was magical when it came to bring out the best in his cast, and especially Bibbi and Harriet Andersson. Not to forget Liv Ullman. Fanny and Alexander is one of my top 10 all time films. But I would also recommend Den goda viljan (1992), written by Bergman, about his parents and directed by Billie August. The cinematography is stunning and the cast is among the best in Sweden.
Yes, I've actually read Lagercrantz's fourth book. Which in Sweden has the Nietzschean title "That which does not kill us". Which is a much better title than "The Spider's Web". I was on the fence for quite sometime, before I decided to read it, since it's been so much discussions about the fourth draft which Larsson apparently had written, at the time he so tragically died.
But above all because there was no will and Eva Gabrielsson, Larsson's partner for over 30 years inherited nothing, because they weren't married. So even though she had been a huge part in the writing process of the Millennium, she got absolutely nothing. She's always been against a fourth book, since she thinks that Larsson's family are just looking to earn even your money, money Larsson himself never got the chance to enjoy. The debate here around the Larsson family, and what they have done with Stieg's works, has been overheated at times, and many in Sweden has sided with Eva and not read the book. I think it's safe to say that the fourth book is more a success abroad, than here in Sweden.
But I think that Lagercrantz has managed quite well with the book. He's tried in some parts to write as Larsson, but as he says himself, to maintain his own style. Now I haven't read any of his previous books so I've got nothing to compare with. But it's okay, it's not great, he's definitely not as good at building up the same atmosphere as Larsson, and if I would rate it, I'd say 3/5.
And I'm actually glad to read that you did notice several translation errors. That's another thing which been heavily discussed here. From I get, the translators have received massive criticism and have actually skipped some parts where Larsson embroider too much, but also factual errors, which must be annoying for someone who speaks both languages. The translator is Steven T. Murray with the pseudonym Reg Keeland. And if you check this link, you'll read about thoughts about the translation, and Reg Keeland himself has also made a comment, the 22nd. http://stieglarsson.com/english-translation-stieg-larsson-the-man-behind-lisbeth-salander/
So yes, if you're fluent in German, I'd actually recommend the German translation. Because I think you're right, I think it's easier to translate it into German than into English, and especially American English.
You're most welcome about the maps, its honestly just fun. I enjoyed very much reading your reply too. Take care Chrissie, and say hello to Massachusetts from me :)
Beja