MOVIE: Let The Right One In - 04/2009

A vampire movie created in Sweden. A fairytale. Young and innocent love mixed with brutal necessity set within the ethereal, icy climes of Winter season Svenska. The light is white. Or it is murky black. The jumpers are thick, the boots heavy, and the silences long. They are cold and fearful or simple and tingling. The mood is set with angular looks, internal breathing and a carrying soundtrack.

Let The Right One In centres around a boy, Oskar, and a vampire girl named Eli, set in 1982. The two meet outside their housing block, on the climbing frame covered in snow, and from that moment they embark on a relationship. It is both delicate, as the film shows them throw themselves into the pit of love, and treacherous. Oskar is an endearing, touching and humorous lead. Bullied at school, his parents live separately and he yearns for a deeper sense of belonging, and has a vision of crushing his bullies. Eli provides for him, a friend, an accomplice, a companion, and an emblem of strength. Eli herself is controlling. Being a vampire, she has that capability. But yet, she is still soft and gentle, even with blood forming red lines from her mouth.

There are no other characters that are given this voyeuristic camera time. This may be the reason why you become so incorporated in the presence, and the silence surrounding the two leads. Set off further by the crisp freshness, it’s a beautifully brutal tale of purity, love, and blood.