Let the Right One In (2008)

[Jeff D]

I forget where I learned about this film, which was released theatrically in the U.S. in 2008.   It was made by a Swedish director, cast and crew, from a screenplay written by the Swede who wrote the novel on which the film is based.  There is a dubbed English soundtrack available on the Region 1 DVD, in addition to subtitles.

A rather atypical "vampire" movie, quiet in tone and beautifully shot,  in which the two lead characters are preteens (a boy who is a loner, with divorced and rather distant parents, obsessed with violent news stories, and constantly suffering at the hands of bullies at his school . . . and an androgynous young neighbor who appears to be a girl but won't admit she is, who never goes out in the daytime, who says she is "12, more or less," and who has unusual dietary needs, shall we say).   This is as much a film about friendship as it is a horror film, but there is gore (tastefully done, if that's possible) and violence.

The viewer could easily come to several different conclusions about the motives of the characters and the implications of the ending, which I found to be quite appropriate.

Beware of some spoilers if you search for this film on Wikipedia or at imdb.com.

I've heard that this film is being remade by an American director for U.S. release sometime later this year.  I'll be curious to do a comparison, as I will be about the terrific French thriller Tell No One (2006), which is also being re-made in a U.S. version.

[JO 753]

Great Movie. I watched it twice in a few dayz even tho I usually wont bother with subtitled moviez.

I'll be surprized if the American version works. It will be difficult to duplicate the atmosfere.

[nmblum]

Great Movie. I watched it twice in a few dayz even tho I usually wont bother with subtitled moviez.

I'll be surprized if the American version works. It will be difficult to duplicate the atmosfere.

Just curious:
Do you not bother with subtitled movies because:
a) You prefer to hear the film in the language, whatever language,  in which it was made? Whch,
b) Allows you to watch how many foreign films in any given lifetime? Or,
c) You find common English usage  difficult to follow on a screen? And,
d) Are waiting for "The Seventh Seal, " and? or 'Open City"  or whatever great film of our choice, to be reissued in EsperanZo??  And of course,
e) None of the above, but something else entirely.
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[JO 753]

I dont like missing the visual detail uv the film wile reading. You'd think they woud dub the best forign filmz for us, but it never seemz to happen.

Last subtitled movie I saw wuz Dead Snow, a Norwegian blood & guts (lots uv guts) horror film. Not into that whole Nazi zombie thing, but I watched it bekuz my brother wanted to know if it wuz any good and I coud see it for free on Comcast.

[Jeff D]

It can be difficult, especially when watching at home, to focus on reading subtitles and everything else happening on the screen.  I watch subtitled movies frequently, usually early in the AM on weekends when my wife is still asleep. She is less willing to watch subtitled movies than I am, although there have been exceptions -- the Spanish film The Orphanage, for example -- where she was riveted in her attention and eventually stopped noticing that she was reading subtitles.

[nmblum]

I don't know...
My Mom, who loved the movies and could imitate every star, male or female, and identify every character actor back to "Birth of an Nation." started, I noticed,  to FAL ASLEEP in the  theater, and had to be jostled with an elbow to stop the occasional snore.
I was aghast... and afraid: I decided it could only be a combination of old age (she was 35) and a fatal narcolepsy.
But suddenly *I* began to doze off during a film, and suffer terrible teasing from my own family.....I recently fell into a deep, deep sleep during the first ten minutes of Johnny Depp's "Alice in Wonderland<" and didn't wake up until the lights went on: it was, is, simply a terrible, terrible film in every way that a film can be  terrible.ds
So  now I am defiant, and I say this, because I find that it is true:   I do NOT fall asleep during  films that stimulate the juices liberated by a great story well told.
Throw in great direction and fine actors... and I can see the same film over and over without missing a note: "the Godfather" comes to mind, or "Apocalypse Now," and recently I watched two D.W. Griffith war horses back to back without even blinking....
Nor do I fall asleep during any film that captures both my interest and my imagination for whatever reason... but mostly that it is a GOOD film by the standards that make a movie good...
So by my lights and understanding your wife's dismissal of sub-titles, like nodding off, is a tacit (and valid ) form of criticism: the film in question simply doesn't hack it.... lots of films don't.
"The Orphanage, for instance, is from beginning to end.... completely absorbing, the use of the camera, the ambience, the cast.... all of it...it's impossible to let go.
And I say that as someone who was dragged, kicking, protesting because I do not seek out films that carry the label "horror," having my own horror or deliberately seeking out anxieties: real life produces a sufficiency of those.
It was, once seated, impossible to turn one's eyes from the screen, even for a moment.
And it is possible, although I haven't tested it lately, that seeing such a film with no knowledge of Spanish, no dubbing, no sub-titling, would still be an experience of a kind that film CAN provide, using only the vocabulary of film, the expressive use of actors and camera.
Response to the senses is produced in the brain.....   music, art, food, odors.. and certainly film, the better they are at what they are intended to do, the firmer  your mind is enlisted on behalf of the matter at hand.

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[JO 753]

I watched The Orphanage. Good gost story. There iznt a huge amount going on all the time, so the subtitlez didnt bug me. It reminded me uv The Gost & Mrs. Muir.

[Jeff D]

I don't agree that there are many similarities between The Orphanage and the circa 1947 film The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, which is one of my favorite romantic fantasy / three-hankie cornball classics of that era.  

Both films are nominally ghost stories, both are set largely in old houses in remote locations, both involve independent-minded women as the central living characters.  But of course, the ghosts in the two films are quite different in age and in the types of interactions they have with the human characters, and apart from the "fate" of the lead female characters, the endings of the two films are different in outcome and in tone.

[JO 753]

Just saying it reminded me.

[Jeff D]

No problem, JO.  I realize that you neither said nor implied that there were lots of similarities.   As mental triggers, "reminders" are quirky things, and the quirks and differences can be something to celebrate, because Person A may make a connection or association that Person B does not.

[vanderpoel]

So by my lights and understanding your wife's dismissal of sub-titles, like nodding off, is a tacit (and valid ) form of criticism: the film in question simply doesn't hack it.... lots of films don't.

Au contraire ma belle frère. My wife told me plenty of times that I missed the good parts when I would fall asleep in a theater after a long day at work. Only the good movies put you to sleep. Bad movies keep you awake. I know this because my wife never ever told me that I missed the bad part of a movie.
Not saying she knows movies.

[JO 753]

I watched Let the Right One In last nite & it iz dubbed! So much for my memory.