I just saw the Swedish vampire movie Let the right one in. It is beautifully haunting, set in winter in a bleak Stockholm suburb in the early 1980s and tells the strange love between a young boy, Oskar, who is the target of abuse by school bullies and a young vampire girl, Eli, played by the wonderful Lina Leandersson. The movie manages to be a romantic tell of early adolescent love set amidst serial killings and horror. It certainly isn't Twilight. It reminded me of when I lived in a similar Stockholm suburb, Taby in 1984 and then went to high school in an industrial company town farther north, Sandviken. The same endless, white grey silent winter days that quickly gave into tonight, and nothing seemed to happen. The world seemed to have slowed down and you felt that you were far, far from anything that mattered. The director managed to capture young love and the bleakness of life in a winter in Sweden c. 1980.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteI know it's a little bit late, but I just stumbled upon your blog, saw a post concerning this great story (I don't like the movie, but the book is awesome). You've made a huge mistake by seeing Eli as a girl. I know, the producers were really chicken-hearted, when they tried to hide it in favor of a bigger audience... In the book, it's one of the most interesting things, that what Eli wants to say by pointing out "I am not a girl.." that he's a boy (who lost his balls and so on, but read the book). He didn't tell that to explain that he's a vampire. It's quite funny to see, that it troubles Oskar way more to see, that Eli is a boy, than he thinks about dating a vampire.
Just my 5 cent about gay panic :)