Let the Right One In

 

 

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Straight from Mongrel Media by phone. This version, with the French dub, and French festival banner on the cover, also has the updated corrected English THEATRICAL subtitles. All of Amazon.ca's stock is this version. Beware shopping locally, many retail stores still have stock of the older version with the incorrect subs.

Wow. Someone's actually managed to make an original vampire movie. I'm not a big fan of vampire stories, I've just seen it too many times. But this as good as it gets. Beautifully shot (and great looking on blu-ray), moody, mysterious, emotional. This is as much a pre-adolescent love story, as anything.

An outsider boy, fragile, picked on, and harboring violent fantasies of revenge is befriended by a strange, pale young girl who doesn't
seem to feel the Swedish cold.

It's a strange and fascinating mix of tones; bloody, gory killings, very sweet, well acted pre-teen romance, and occasional black comedy. There's also an interesting, complex morality here. Both our young heroes have deeply violent, sadistic streaks within them. Yet we root for them, even though some off her victims are truly innocent, and he collects stories about murder like a nascent serial killer. It grew even deeper emotionally on 2nd viewing.

One note re the subtitle controversy - the UK blu-ray has the correct subtitles, and plays just fine on North American machines. At least it did on mine. And the newer NA blu-rays have been corrected as well, but
be careful as some of the old are still floating around.

All that said, the DVD image isn't half bad...

I am not a horror-film fan.

The Jasons and the Freddys and the forgotten-half-brother-of-the-high-school-jock who grows up to kill the children of his tormentors at summer camp, don't do it for me either.

There are a few, though, that are really well done and speak more about phobias that plague each of us and how we adapt or are marginalized by them. Films like The Exorcist, Carrie, The Amityville Horror and even Fright Night whose dark expose offers up the spiritual in a backhanded way whereas the viewer is made to understand the esoteric mechanics of life.

The great works of Art do. This is their purpose.

When Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, nearly a century and a half ago, the issue she (and her mother and step-father for that matter) wrestled with was the idea of how to re-construct the human being to get him/ her to see beyond the psychology that defines gender and nature. The Hollywood bastardization of this great novel with its grotesque redepiction of the Creation undermined the motivation of the author and, by default, the message.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (2008) is director Tomas Alfredson's visionary adaptation of author John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel of the same name.

In this film, the Swedish version (and the far, far superior version to the US release) we meet Oskar (brilliantly played by Kare Hedebrandt) a twelve-year old or as he'd say to Eli, "twelve years, eight months and nine days!"

Oskar is the stereotypical outcast. He's fearful of going to school. Fearful of what the school day will bring in the form of the school's bullies, who relentless taunt him because he doesn't "fit in."

Does Oskar really not "fit in?" I suggest that it would be a gross misunderstanding to characterize his isolation by a few as being someone who doesn't "fit in." Of course, he fits in. He was a normal teenager. He loved swimming, loved his Rubic's Cube and admired the girls who wouldn't give him (or many of us, at that age) the time of day, preferring the company of those who made his life (and ours) a living hell.

Oskar lets out steam in a time and place where he feels completely free to express himself: outside in the cold, dark evenings of the deserted playground directly under the watchful eye of his loving, single-mother. He fancies taking out his aggressions not on society at-large, not on any innocent classmates, but on the bullies themselves. And, that's an important distinction to make.

It was during one of these moments, coincidentally, where he meets Eli (played equally brilliant by Lena Leandersson) a mysterious girl who looks to be about the same age as Oskar. And, in fact, just before he tells her how old he is, she tells him that she is "twelve... more or less."

"More or less?" What does that mean, "more or less?" Oskar's inquiry leads him no where. Who is this girl? Why doesn't she know how old she is? Why is she dressed like this? And, why is she out here in the cold, barefooted in nothing but a nightdress? He has so many questions but they seem to elude his naturally inquisitive mind when he stopped to look at her friendly face.

This movie, unlike its predecessors, has only a few moments of violence (considering the subject). That is to say, you'll not be shocked by excessive gore. She is a vampire, of course, and as such she is driven by solely survival propensities and nothing more.

The film, to its director's credit, doesn't rely on the creature's physiological pursuit. This is a relationship film, plain and simple. And, we relate because we understand. We see ourselves in the many faces that play different characters.

At the heart of this film is an intimate discussion about friendship, loyalty, about confronting fear and daring to ask the unspeakable questions to and about ourselves and the people we have relationships with.

This is the genius of this film. This is a work of art.

Right now, we're facing cut backs in art programs in schools all around the US. The prevailing notion is that the arts are an unnecessary expenditure. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, the film (and I venture to say the book, as well) is an argument against that notion. There are but a few who're profiting financially from this film and book, but to reduce the value of what we experience in terms of dollars and cents is miss the whole point.

What can be gained? How about the same conversation that Shelley had? How about re-imagining ourselves, not as a grotesque Hollywood reinvention, but as an amalgam of ideas, dreams, lessons, as thinking, rational, compassionate human beings who share the wealth of our experiences with our fellow man for no other motivation than to see and to be a part of a more prosperous community.

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Very good movie
I got the chance to see this movie on HBO its not the theatrical version that just came out this year but the 2008 original version. Read more

Published 16 months ago by Yannick Messaoud

1.0 out of 5 stars Theatrical Version???
Does anyone have any information about this release? This listing tells absolutely nothing. Is this the theatrical version? Are there any extras? Commentaries? Read more

Published on Nov 25 2009 by Me

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