Tomas Alfredson
Sweden
2004
This Norwegian vampire-drama film is an inconsistently outstanding film. Although most part of the film I find unnecessary there are also few remarkably fantastic scenes and elements, so good that it compensates the dragging feel of the whole story. Given the chance that it has been cut down to only 20-30% of the entire film, a short film in other words, then this film could have been perfect. Probably my main concern about this Alfredson movie is that the essence of the film is too scarcely found and evident that it gives such an exhausting demand from the viewers to make sense out of those arguably unimportant shots. On the brighter side, I can’t totally hate or dislike this film because it is not bad at all certainly. In fact, “Let the Right One In” happens to be in my Top 100 Movies at least because of those aforementioned fantastic scenes and elements.
One of the chief drawbacks about this film is in spite of having a close to stagnant plot; the story still relied on the plot to move the story. Thus, making a plot-driven movie out of a story that is almost plotless. That very action is nevertheless accountable for some amount of indulgence on something so mundane. Even at the end when we thought the vampire leaves the boy, and thought that the boy will start to fight back for the first time, he still did not and it has to be the vampire to reap the bodies of the boys bullying him. This is not my first time to see such unconventional approach on screenwriting and most of them are almost unforgivable for they are regarded as work of arts, or as original films, and yet you don’t feel it. This film however, is not bad, this is an exception indeed.
Another drawback is the lack of tension appropriate for a vampire film. Though this is not purely a vampire film, there still has to be not just considerable but overflowing volume of tension. Yes there are those frightening scenes when Eli attacks humans, and when his father kills and drains the victim’s blood for her, but what is lacking is the tension from the community. I understand that there is a cultural difference between Philippine and Norwegian setting because a vampire film in the Philippines will surely have a tremendous tension contributed by the affected neighborhood or community, and that is something I did not feel even a little. There should be no excuse about how a neighborhood or community would react over vampires; it should be more or less just the same, culture therefore should not create less fear of vampires in one country with another country. I don’t understand why I never saw a police in this film. When people from the same community dies strangely how can there be no police investigating it? Why was there only a single person who tried to look for the culprit? Why was there no clamor from a cry-worthy event? These are narrative issues and there should be reasons definitely, however I can’t think of any reason that will justify the hassle of watching and understanding. Does Alfredson want to encircle the film just between Oskar and Eli? I don’t think that works. Vampires are folk-mythology, they can’t be too enclosed and they can’t be too personal.
We have some common understanding about the vampires: they are afraid intensely of the sunlight and may even burn; they are pale because they are not lit by sunshine and when they are hungry for blood; they look strange and awkward; they vomit human food (in our case—candy); and they have supernatural abilities of climbing and jumping. In this film though we learnt of new things about them: they are not cold at all like they can go out in the winter snow without having anything on their feet and any other gears to keep them warm; and that they have skills in solving a Rubik’s cube. The most important catch about vampires in this film is the fact that they can teach us some valuable lessons even though it is something violent—to fight back.
The story is not really focused about vampires, instead about a boy bullied at school and his unlikely friendship with a vampire and yet the vampire shares that spotlight with our main protagonist. Chiefly because there is no much power the protagonist holds that is why the vampire becomes a strong element. This reflects back to the flaw its narrative is ailing.
Mentioning that it is not bad at all despite of all the faultfinding I made, there are still a number of good things about this vampire-drama movie and some are very good. The last scene, which is the golden tooth in a mouth of decay, where Oskar still does not fight back against his classmates bestows and revives the age-long buried concept that human instincts still can’t kill, and when they can, one would be enough. Violence are only reduced to quirks as what I can see in this film and the only ones who hurt and kill are the non-human, a vampire, and any savage being. The actors are likeable it is actually keeping me from continuing watching. Though you are dissatisfied with most of the parts, it is always going to be hard to despise the film. Kare Hedebrant playing Oskar and Lina Leandersson playing Eli helped me get by. I find the film a little above average one. It has an independent film feel. Definitely not the tailor-cut, easy-to-watch movie, also the easy-to-find-fault one, and interestingly still-likeable, this film is really got me baffled not in how I understand the movie but in the sense that I don’t know why I hate it and yet I like it.
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