When watching foreign film, it is always difficult for me to ascertain how much of the strangeness of a film is because of my limited understanding of the culture. That said, once I get past what I may or may not have questions about and generally accept the ‘rules’ of the movie’s environment, I often thoroughly enjoy the non-American style of storytelling. Let the Right One In is certainly in the ‘thoroughly enjoyed’ category.
The basic plot line – and I say basic because it has many, many layers – is that a boy named Oskar, whose nose drips constantly, lives with his mother and is bullied mercilessly by kids at school, meets his newest neighbour, a young girl named Eli, who does not wear boots or a coat in the dead of winter, smells bad and only comes out when it’s dark outside. Though Oskar does not find out until much later, we know that Eli is a vampire or, as she so elegantly puts it, she ‘survives on blood’, and that she has a companion of sorts in an older man, a human, who goes out to do her killing for her.
From this develops a significantly complex character study in a film that begs to be ‘read’ rather than ‘watched’. Leaving aside some of those stangely awkward moments that derive from an American audience watching a movie that was made of a decidedly un-American one, the movie moves at a pace significantly slower than most people are used to, but every moment has a putpose. The slow and steady building of Eli and Oskar’s relationship and, consequently, Oskar’s self-esteem, is magical. Even though we are aware the Eli is not the age of 12 that she tells Oskar she is, she remains very childlike. Her actions lead us to believe that she is much wiser than this, but she can not help herself; she is fascinated with Oskar and wants to be with him.
It is with great regret that I must inform you that there is already an American remake of this movie in the works. Not unlike so many before it, this movie simply will not play to a wide-release American audience, who will be bored to tears and not really understand why no one is trying to stake the vampire. It will bechanged significantly and gore-d up, effectively demolishing the filmmaker’s original intention. When will we stop defiling the world’s great cinema for the purpose of a profit?
I highly recommend this movie, but must warn you: this is a movie about two people and the town they live in, one of whom happens to be a vampire. I would not categorically call this a ‘vampire movie’ but rather it is a device that is employed to better present a thesis on the dichotomy between the old and the young and what it means to be each.
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