LET THE RIGHT ONE IN
Directed by Tomas Alfredson
Written by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Starring Kare Hedebrandt, Lina Leandersson
Released in 2008
Directed by Tomas Alfredson
Written by John Ajvide Lindqvist
Starring Kare Hedebrandt, Lina Leandersson
Released in 2008
It's that time of year again. Halloween, they call it, that fun-loving place on the calendar when grandma chases you down into the darkened basement waving cat entrails over her head while screaming curses in Nahuatl and grandpa mixes up his patented treat of dolomitic lime brownies with ear wax frosting. Huh? I'm revealing a little too much personal history? Okay, have it your way. Just don't say I didn't warn you about the oldsters in your midst.
Funny enough, that makes for a decent segue into our very special Halloween movie review. The movie in question is called Let the Right One In (2008) and it has earned this year's honor for scariest vampire movie of all time. Please don't confuse this intoxicating masterpiece with a sub-par English remake two years later called Let Me In. That latter flick was good, I suppose, but for a really tingling experience the way vampire movies are supposed to be, you need the Swedish. Now, if you're anything like me, you probably didn't even know that they made major motion pictures in Sweden, at least not since the days of Ingmar Bergman. It turns out there's all kinds of first rate Swedish filmmakers. Who? Well, there's Roy Andersson and Ulf Malmros, and there's Lukas Moodysson and Thomas Alfredson, the latter gent being the genius mind behind tonight's flick of the jugular.
Let the Right One In, or, as they called it back home, Låt den rätte komma in, is the story of two adorable twelve year olds, Oskar and Eli. The time is Fenruary 1982. The location is a town called Blackeberg, which is near Stockholm. Oskar is a somewhat studious young boy who gets bullied by a trio of idiots. Eli is new in town and even though she assures Oskar that they can never be friends, he charms her with various puzzles, such as a Rubik's cube and Morse code, and before long, the two find themselves going steady. The only real problem in their relationship is that Eli cannot quite remember her own birthday. I mean, hell, it has been two hundred years and a gal forgets these kinds of things, especially when the gal is a vampire.
Eli charms Oskar in return. The object of her affections is a lonely boy and the fact that Eli has no specific genitals or that she's cold as a gravestone is not going to deter young Oskar from hooking up with the love of his life. Wouldn't you know it, though? Even at twelve, or two hundred twelve, there's always got to be some damned conflict to get in the way of the plot. In this case, the conflict is of the vampire versus human variety, in that the local drinkers in Blackeberg have observed that some most unfortunate things have been happening to the less sober in their midst, most of these things being the result of a bungling Familiar named Hakan. This guy has been sent out by Eli to drain blood out of the people he strings up. But you should never send a grown-up to do the work of a kid. He ends up committing a very strange version of seppuku (harikiri), an act of extreme contrition that speeds up the film considerably.
Probably the best element in this movie, aside from the acting, which is amazing, and also aside from the scenery, which is so beautiful you'll forget how cold it looks, is the fact that Eli inspires Oskar to become stronger than he is when we first meet him. Oh, he's not exactly a coward to begin with, but he just doesn't know what to do when the bullies come after him. "Hit back hard," Eli advises him. "But there's three of them." "Hit back even harder."
This is a major movie and the fact that it didn't take the Oscar for best foreign film in 2009 speaks to the narrow-mindedness of that arcane institution. It lost out because of its genre and just possibly because the very real romantic tension between Oskar and Eli made certain members of the academy a trifle uncomfortable. The viewer gets just as hung up on this relationship as the two protagonists do and I suspect that fact made certain glorified pornographers in the Academy a bit uneasy. There's nothing trite or exploitive going on in Let the Right One In. It's a real love story, one with cosmic implications.
Lina Leandersson, who at seventeen should have an amazing career ahead of her, lures Oskar (given understated magnificence by Kare Hedebrant) to his own salvation throughout this movie, chock full as it is with some of the most seductive scenery you're ever likely to see in a vampire picture.
Funny enough, that makes for a decent segue into our very special Halloween movie review. The movie in question is called Let the Right One In (2008) and it has earned this year's honor for scariest vampire movie of all time. Please don't confuse this intoxicating masterpiece with a sub-par English remake two years later called Let Me In. That latter flick was good, I suppose, but for a really tingling experience the way vampire movies are supposed to be, you need the Swedish. Now, if you're anything like me, you probably didn't even know that they made major motion pictures in Sweden, at least not since the days of Ingmar Bergman. It turns out there's all kinds of first rate Swedish filmmakers. Who? Well, there's Roy Andersson and Ulf Malmros, and there's Lukas Moodysson and Thomas Alfredson, the latter gent being the genius mind behind tonight's flick of the jugular.
Let the Right One In, or, as they called it back home, Låt den rätte komma in, is the story of two adorable twelve year olds, Oskar and Eli. The time is Fenruary 1982. The location is a town called Blackeberg, which is near Stockholm. Oskar is a somewhat studious young boy who gets bullied by a trio of idiots. Eli is new in town and even though she assures Oskar that they can never be friends, he charms her with various puzzles, such as a Rubik's cube and Morse code, and before long, the two find themselves going steady. The only real problem in their relationship is that Eli cannot quite remember her own birthday. I mean, hell, it has been two hundred years and a gal forgets these kinds of things, especially when the gal is a vampire.
Eli charms Oskar in return. The object of her affections is a lonely boy and the fact that Eli has no specific genitals or that she's cold as a gravestone is not going to deter young Oskar from hooking up with the love of his life. Wouldn't you know it, though? Even at twelve, or two hundred twelve, there's always got to be some damned conflict to get in the way of the plot. In this case, the conflict is of the vampire versus human variety, in that the local drinkers in Blackeberg have observed that some most unfortunate things have been happening to the less sober in their midst, most of these things being the result of a bungling Familiar named Hakan. This guy has been sent out by Eli to drain blood out of the people he strings up. But you should never send a grown-up to do the work of a kid. He ends up committing a very strange version of seppuku (harikiri), an act of extreme contrition that speeds up the film considerably.
Probably the best element in this movie, aside from the acting, which is amazing, and also aside from the scenery, which is so beautiful you'll forget how cold it looks, is the fact that Eli inspires Oskar to become stronger than he is when we first meet him. Oh, he's not exactly a coward to begin with, but he just doesn't know what to do when the bullies come after him. "Hit back hard," Eli advises him. "But there's three of them." "Hit back even harder."
This is a major movie and the fact that it didn't take the Oscar for best foreign film in 2009 speaks to the narrow-mindedness of that arcane institution. It lost out because of its genre and just possibly because the very real romantic tension between Oskar and Eli made certain members of the academy a trifle uncomfortable. The viewer gets just as hung up on this relationship as the two protagonists do and I suspect that fact made certain glorified pornographers in the Academy a bit uneasy. There's nothing trite or exploitive going on in Let the Right One In. It's a real love story, one with cosmic implications.
Lina Leandersson, who at seventeen should have an amazing career ahead of her, lures Oskar (given understated magnificence by Kare Hedebrant) to his own salvation throughout this movie, chock full as it is with some of the most seductive scenery you're ever likely to see in a vampire picture.
