10. Let the Right One In (2008), dir. Tomas Alfredson

[strange_complex]

I first saw this during my trip to Australia in 2017 on a friend's telly-box (LJ / DW), but as I had never seen it in the cinema I was very happy to go along and watch it again at the Hyde Park Picturehouse with lady_lugosi1313 recently. It is, after all, very good.

Some things which particularly struck me this time, and / or I didn't mention last time, included the very effective use of silence and stillness throughout the movie. It creates a compelling sense of focus and isolation around Oskar and Eli when they meet in the play-area of their apartment building, underscoring how separate from everything around them their friendship is. And once that's established, it contrasts nicely with the sounds we do hear - yelling from Oskar's bullies, the buzz of conversation in the bar where the adults hang out, the roar in Oskar's ears as he is being held underwater in the pool.

Perhaps because I was seeing it on a big screen this time, or perhaps just because I already knew the story so could pick up smaller details, I also noticed that sometimes when Eli is in vampire-attack mode, CGI is used to make them appear both older and more savage. I really liked that - both the subtlety of it, so that you may or may not consciously notice it, and the properly frightening, supernatural edge it gives to the character (who could otherwise risk becoming too humanised). And although I had certainly remembered how touching the portrayal of Eli and Oskar's relationship is, I had forgotten that from time to time the film is also darkly humorous - as when we learn that Eli has appeared to save Oskar's life and make short work of his tormentors by seeing severed limbs and heads falling into the swimming pool from Oskar's underwater perspective.

In my head, this film now belongs on a list of five exceptionally-good (for different reasons) vampire movies which we've been lucky enough to have in the last now-slightly-more-than-ten years. In chronological order, those are:

• Let the Right One In (2008)
• Byzantium (2012)
• Only Lovers Left Alive (2013)
• A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)
• What We Do In The Shadows (2014)

I will be only too happy to consider further additions to the list if anyone wants to recommend any, or indeed release them!

Comments

[armiphlage]

Something that may change it slightly for some viewers: the housing complex is supposed to be impoverished and dilapidated. Residents of cities with high housing prices may view it as luxurious and upper-middle-class.

[strange_complex]

Yes, that's how I read it. It looks to me like fairly typical continental European urban working-class housing, possibly social housing. It felt like a very plausible setting for a kid whose parents have separated (which I assume was still a bit unusual in early-'80s Sweden) to be living.

[armiphlage]

Oksar's apartment (one adult, one kid) is about three times bigger than my apartment in Toronto (which is currently occupied by two adults).

https://www.flickr.com/photos/35118410@N04/4231708123/

[strange_complex]

OK, the Toronto housing situation is clearly pretty bad. That said, my judgement on the class of housing being depicted wasn't so much based on the size of the apartments (which don't come across as being as large as those floor plans suggest in the film) as on things like the build quality - pebble-dash cladding, fairly uninspiring landscaping and facilities, etc.