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LET THE RIGHT ONE IN aka Låt Den Rätte Komma In - 2008
EFTI / The Chimney Pot / Fido Film AB / Filmpool Nord / Ljudligan / Sandrew Metronome Distribution Sverige AB / Sveriges Television (SVT) / WAG
Ratings: USA: R |
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You know, you can only be so slow, so low key, before disinterest sets in.
The movie opens with someone saying, "Scream. Squeal like a pig." Then we see a young boy in his underwear, staring out a window. The boy is Oskar (Kåre Hedebrant) and he watches as a man and young girl move into his apartment complex at night. He watches, they shuffle back and forth, he hears them move in next door to his room. Oskar picks up a knife, turns away from the window, and brandishing the knife says, "Scream. Squeal like a pig."
So okay, it was a rather longish scene but I do want to know who he was threatening with that knife.
The man is
Håkan (Per Ragnar: STORM) and the child with him is Eli (Lina Leandersson).
The next day Oskar goes to school
and sits through a class where a policeman tells the children how his superior detective skills can solve cases even when a body is burnt. For example, does the class know how they could tell that a fire was started to cover the fact that the burnt body was murdered before the fire was set? Oskar raises his hand and answers the question. Oskar knows and it unsettles the teacher and police officer, but only makes him a bigger target for the classroom bullies who don't take kindly to smart folks. Oskar never fights back, he just endures the hurt and humiliation. But when you don't fight back, the violence only gets worse. Afterall, there are no prerecussions.
Oskar takes out his anger in imaginary ways. He bundles up at night, goes out into the snow, and stabs trees with his knife. The new girl, dressed in nothing but her nightgown, watches him from the playground. They converse lightly, but the girl tells him they can't be friends.
Håkan packs up an unusual box, goes out at night, stops a young man, and kills him. He attempts to slowly bleed the man out, but is stopped in his work by some passerby. Håkan fails to fill up his jug with the young man's blood. Eli berates him back at their apartment and Håkan can only ask for forgiveness. Okay, so Eli is a vampire, we get that. At one point, when Oskar asks her age, she says, "I'm twelve. But I've been twelve for a very long time."
LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is based on the novel, LET ME IN, by John Ajvide Lindqvist who also wrote the screenplay for this. This is a FRIGHT NIGHT style vampire where a bloodsucker, when exposed to the sun, goes up in rip-roaring flames.
John also wrote the screenplay. Directed by Tomas Alfredson, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN really takes its time to tell it's tale. And yet, there is a deceptive organic quality to this, as if the story is being told in real time and this is how things move in the old suburbs of Stockholm, Sweden. This movie alludes to the idea that this takes place in the mid 1970s, when Brezhnev was still alive - though I'm not sure why. No computers, cell phones or other modern conveniences in this place and time. People still listen to portable 45 record players and have boxy old televisions.
Normally such a slow movie would lose my interest, but they kept feeding out these curious things.
"Why does the kid say 'Squeal like a pig!'?"
"What is that guy going to do with those tools?"
"Just who is this little girl?"
Things like that. Though it took it's time, every scene had something happening in it, nothing was wasted. Every single scene left you wondering, it caught your curiosity. I just had to keep watching to see what was going to happen next. LET THE RIGHT ONE IN is hypnotic in its simplicity. When the ending came, it didn't disappoint.
3 Shriek Girls.
This review copyright 2008 E.C.McMullen Jr.
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LET ME IN
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