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Film Reviews

Let The Right One In

Magnolia Pictures
www.lettherightoneinmovie.com

As you’ve probably already heard, this is not your average ‘vampire’ film. No. It is not. It is however, your average bleak, snow-coated, quiet-but-charming Scandinavian film. This is not really about Vampires as such, but more about the relationship between two pubescent loners.

While there are a number of unsettling bloody moments, they aren’t at all sensational or by any means unnecessary, they merely act of life, showing the almost tragic but touching and weirdly chaste love story.

We follow Oskar; a lonely, quiet boy who lives with his mother. Oskar is like many other adolescent boys his age, concealing a fascination with death and morbidity, up-dating a scrap book containing local news cuttings about bloody crimes. He’s bullied by the boys at school, but only ever reacts when he’s alone, taking his anger out on a tree with his treasured pocket knife. That is until one night he meets his new neighbour, Eli. Eli admits to being a similar age, but seems somewhat wiser, and also always shoeless in the snow.

At first Oskar is wary of Eli, he doesn’t have any friends and finds it hard to understand why she wants to talk to him. Their childlike ways allow for simple and honest conversation which not only add to the quietness of the film but also the charm. As innocent as their conversations are each night, there is also something very unsettling about their relationship. You can feel something predatory about Eli and something prey like in Oskar, but because they’re both quite content in having someone to be near it doesn’t become an issue. When Eli returns from a night of hunting, she crawls into Oskar’s window and lies next to him while he sleeps, her face covered in drying blood, his clean and pale.

The snow covered streets and the pale winter light really emphasize the bleak backdrop of the story, especially against the sudden contrast of blood, splattered or draining from a hanging carcass. The colour is so desaturated and muted that when we see the red of the fresh blood it’s almost warm and welcoming – seductive even.

The final few scenes leave a bittersweet taste in your mouth; I can’t decide if it’s really necessary or was only put in as a final act of violent but romantic revenge. But the image of the massacred children around the quiet pool is quite disturbing. In all the film is a perfect combination of young love, nativity and fear. It’s a warped, unsettling fairy tale that stays with you for quite a long time, it also shows some hope that there are some people who can still make original and brilliant films.

Emily Paget