Set in 1982 in the suburb of Blackeberg, Stockholm, twelve-year-old Oskar is a lonely outsider, bullied at school by his classmates; at home, Oskar dreams of revenge against a trio of bullies. He befriends his twelve-year-old, next-door neighbor Eli, who only appears at night in the snow-covered playground outside their building.
22 Feb Let the Right One In (2008)
Choosing
Vampire (and werewolf) films have always been built on a foundation of sex, some approach to sex. Often the reference is blunt and the sexual issues unsophisticated, as in the ‘Twilight‘ franchise. Here we have something rather extraordinary, a well made film with a novel and engaging sexual foundation.
Our vampire in this case is an eternally prepubescent soul, locked not in a spiritual eternity as usual, but through yearning for sex. Rather a sexual role. Our vampire was infected in a way that involved castration and sexlessness. He identifies as a girl. His goal in the film is to transfer his remaining boyness to a prepubescent boy she finds.
When we first meet her, she is accompanied by a loyal but slow-witted pedophile. She is definitely in charge and there are signs of prior failed attempts of different sorts to find her/his place. She charms the boy, making him ‘be me for a little while.‘ He lets that part of her into his soul, with the end of the story we see as the beginning of a romance chosen at the deepest levels.
It is sweet and stark, calculated and desperate, strengths mixed with weaknesses in Swedish clarity and it touches a yearning we all have.
Posted in 2011
Ted’s Evaluation — 3 of 3: Worth watching.
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