...in the pool has to be one of the most superbly conceived and executed pieces of cinema I've ever seen. The water-muffled sound of Eli bursting into the pool room and the screams, the pure subtlety of showing the results of her actions rather than the actions themselves. Brilliant!
A lot of viewers (I among them) have tried to put together an exact and logical sequence from what we see on screen. Can't be done. Instead, we are left to appreciate our first experience of the scene -- feet thrashing the water, a severed head, a severed (or ripped off) arm. Yes, the muffled sounds, as Oskar would have heard them. In short, we experience that Eli has returned just in time and is kicking the little b______s butts.
What we have is an brilliant exercise in cinema magic, the kind of slight of hand that directors do to create the effect they want, an effect that will elicited a particular reaction from the audience.
Tomas Alfredson is a master story teller.
Bottom line: If you're going to try to hurt some kid, make sure he doesn't have an overprotective vampire girlfriend with anger issues.
Go, TA. You rock.
Definitely.
And there's one other thing that makes this scene so powerful. Even beyond the technical and cinematic flair on display, there is a great deal of emotional resonance. In watching the film, one thing that came through very vividly was the tremendous amount of affection Oskar and Eli had for each other. This climactic scene is the apotheosis of that affection, with Eli's love and sense of protectiveness coming through in, shall we say, a most dramatic fashion.
Well, Felstein, it sounds as though our hearts beat as one about LTROI. Consider checking out a discussion site devoted to the film (and to all things related to it):
http://let-the-right-one-in.com
Looks like an interesting site. Thanks for the link.
I haven't seen Let Me In yet. How do you think it stacks up against the original?
Thanks for your reply! Haven't seen LMI. Not surprising; the only reason I gave LTROI a shot was because it was reviewed in The New Yorker in 2009. I like the reviewer and thought the title sounded eerie. I still didn't see it until it was on ShowTime in March 2013. You might say I accumulate experiences slowly. But when I like something -- Casablanca, Wings of Desire, Samurai Champloo -- I'm likely to be all in, like getting the soundtrack, reading reviews, stuff like that.
But I have to say that, even when compared to undeniably great cinema classics, LTROI holds a special place in my heart. It had my attention starting with the nighttime snowstorm. I was intrigued by Eli's haughty self-assurance when the taxi left and she entered the apartment building. But I was hooked and knew it without a doubt when Eli cocked her head and asked Oskar, "What are you doing?" I set the DVR to record the next showing, then watched it on the edge of my seat hoping that Oskar would be okay and that he and Eli would somehow end up together, but of course fearing the worst.
Okay, this is probably getting to be TMI. Sorry. But any chance to talk about this dear film, I grab it.
Simple answer to your question about LMI: From what I've read, it seems as though it was well done, but nothing sets it above hundreds of other films I'm not likely to see.
Hi dongregg,
I saw Let Me In this past weekend, and my own personal opinion is: Stick with the original. Not that LMI is a bad movie. It was decently made and Kodi and Chloe were good (especially her). But it wasn't necessary. For one thing, it was obviously made to cater to the kind of audience that runs from foreign films as though they were the plague. Not a good enough reason. As I said, the two leads were good, but they paled in comparison to Kåre and Lina. The subtle erotic undercurrent from the original was absent (not surprising, since LMI is an American movie and we simply can't have that!) And the climactic scene was more straightforward and explicit -- and, thus, considerably less powerful -- than the original.
LMI did suggest -- a bit more so than the original -- that the "blood collector" character was someone whom Eli/Abby knew as a child, and that Oskar/Owen may, when he reaches adulthood, be doomed to become her supplier as well.
On the whole, though, it just didn't connect with me emotionally like the original did. If you see it, let me know what you think.
Well, that's about what I expected. A good film but nothing to write home about.
LMI did suggest -- a bit more so than the original -- that the "blood collector" character was someone whom Eli/Abby knew as a child, and that Oskar/Owen may, when he reaches adulthood, be doomed to become her supplier as well.
Ah, interesting. As you can probably tell, I haven't read the novel.
Not to second-guess JAL, but I would rather he had left in the ambiguity and uncertain future.
I'm thinking particularly of the "will she or won't she" moment when Eli kisses Oskar, and that fleeting look in Eli's eyes. Did she love him too much to condemn him to that cursed future? And if so, what kind of future would they have with Oskar being human, growing older by the day, and Eli remaining the same? Or was she just thinking ahead and realized she would need Oskar for practical and logistical reasons? I rather liked coming away from the film with those questions unanswered.
But it's a testament to LTROI, and the multiple layers on which it operates, that such questions are even raised. How many films can one say provoked so much thought afterwards?
Well, John Ajvide Lindqvist at least gave us two years to mull over the possibilities before he published LTODD. And right -- lots of other questions remain. The will-she won't-she of the kiss sparked some great fan fictions that pursue the path of Oskar aging and Eli not aging. Two in particular are very touching -- "Love's Epitaph" and "Life's Memories." The three endings (she drives away; she comes back; they leave together) have even sparked speculation that the pool and train were a fantasy of Oskar's, and even that Oskar died in the pool and the rest was a dying hallucination.
Some plain vanilla questions came from my friends who saw and liked the film but who did not become "infected" by it. "You mean they ran away together?" (train scene). "You mean Eli is really a boy? I thought Eli wasn't a girl because she was a vampire."
There are several more. So, yes, part of the appeal of the film is the ambiguity and/or questions that are raised that can only be answered by the viewer, if at all.
In the end I applaud TA's directing and editing, which left a lot of things out there; and I agree with JAL's clarifying that Eli was not manipulating Oskar -- his LTODD preserves the sweet love story that JAL's script intended. I found it interesting that only a quarter of his script could be shot (within budget and considering limits on the length of the film), and after editing, even less than a quarter remained (as I have heard). It was a great collaboration by two very creative artists.
>> The will-she won't-she of the kiss sparked some great fan fictions
Very cool. That definitely attests to the power of the film. Even I became emotionally involved in the lives of these two characters, and it's not easy to draw me in like that.
>> speculation that the pool and train were a fantasy of Oskar's, and even
>> that Oskar died in the pool and the rest was a dying hallucination.
I didn't even think about that one! I love works that open themselves up to multiple interpretations.
Very cool. That definitely attests to the power of the film. Even I became emotionally involved in the lives of these two characters, and it's not easy to draw me in like that.
Yes, Eli is that perfect friend/girlfriend we all wish we could have had when we were 12. And if she's a vampire... oh well, in the immortal words of Joe E. Brown in Some Like It Hot, "Nobody's perfect!"
I think LTROI fans love the film for both reasons. For me, it taps into my inner adolescent, and it is able to do this because it is so brilliantly made.
I think you're right.
Thanks for your reference to a great fikm -- Joe. E. Brown, Tony, Jack, and Marilyn. What could possibly go wrong!
Whether it's because I saw LMI first, or because I'm hugely in love with CGM - I found LMI the better film. I think too it was the really badly dubbed English version of LTROI I watched that really tipped the balance; I didn't like Oskar as much as Owen but Lina I think was well cast as Eli. Just my admittedly biased opinion.
shareThey originally planned to do that scene with the camera looking through Oskar's eyes. Later they changed it to what we see now (with the camera watching Oskar). I think they did the right thing, because keeping Oskar floating in-screne as he slowly drowns both heightens the sense of urgency, and reminds us that he is the object of the action even though he is not participating in it.
The intellect is cleaver; it discerns and rifts its way into the secret of things
The Oskar POV might have been interesting, as long as it was a true POV with the action rendered opaque by the water. Subtlety, particularly in the use of that kind of indirection, is often so much more effective.
I'm glad they went with the scene as it is, though. Let the audience's imagination fill in the missing pieces.
Indeed I love that scene.
share