Let The Right One In

This November, two non-traditional vampire movies will be released in America. They will both deal with teenagers (or preteens) learning to deal with the world around them, and they are both based on bestsellers. One is a masterpiece that goes far beyond almost any other vampire film ever made, the other is sure to be one of the year's worst films. I'll give you a hint, the name of the second one rhymes with "highlight." Is it really fair of me to judge Twilight, based on the bestselling young adult novel, so harshly without having seen it and only having been able to read ten pages of the book? Yes, because those were the worst ten pages of any book I've ever read. What will make it seem even worse if I'm forced to actually sit through it is the brilliance of that other vampire movie, Let The Right One In. This Swedish film may be the best vampire movie since Herzog's Nosferatu. Although this is a vampire film, it's much closer in feel to Pan's Labyrinth than anything else. While this doesn't reach the exact same level as Del Toro's masterpiece, it is still must-see cinema.

As the film opens, we see Oskar, a twelve year old boy living in the suburbs of Stockholm with his mother. He is an awkward child and faces constant bullying from an incredibly cruel group of children at his school. One night, while sitting in the courtyard outside of his apartment, he meets Eli, a girl who has just moved in and appears to be his age. As soon as she moves in, people around town begin to die in violent attacks. The first attacks were perpetrated by her handler, the much older Hakan, but he eventually fails, and Eli is forced to attack others for sustenance. As the film goes on, Oskar eventually realises what is going on, but he's OK with it. He's falling for Eli, even though she's not technically a girl, and happens to be well over twelve years old. She teaches Oskar to defend himself, and he does so in a scene that heavily reminded me of David Gordon Green's Snow Angels. The citizens of the town realize what's going on, and after numerous deaths, they close in on Eli. The end of the films features a scene of shocking, somewhat macabre violence, as Eli decides what really matters.

The film raises many moral questions, and they are the things that separate it from the standard vampire tale. After draining their blood, Eli clearly has two options. She could allow them to go on as a vampire, or she can kill them. We see what happens to one citizen who becomes a vampire, and Eli's preferred choice of murder seems to make a lot more sense. The people that die so that Eli may go on are all innocent. In fact, only one truly "bad" person dies in the movie. Is it really worth it? We know that Eli is a good person, but so are the townspeople. In the hands of a lesser director (something general audiences will get to see when the American remake, directed by Matt "Cloverfield" Reeves comes out next year), these questions would not have been nearly as interesting and the film would almost undoubtedly focused more on the violence than the characters. Thankfully, Tomas Alfredson shows a deft touch and balances all of the film's issues perfectly. There are probably a few too many lingering shots of snow-fall and nature (great in small amounts, but somewhat excessive here), but that is my only real complaint. The kids playing the leads give some of the best child-performances I've ever seen, the movie looks great, it's constantly exciting and by the end, I truly cared for the characters and their situation. This is the third best film of the year so far, and is my personal front runner for best foreign language film come January.

Rating (out of ****): ****