Last night, I finally got around to viewing Let The Right One In, a Swedish film that got hugely popularized around the time of the larger global release of Twilight. While its fairly safe to say both works can be placed on opposite sides of a particular spectrum, both works indeed center around vampirism, a subsequent adolescent romance, and a release in the Fall of last year. Many critics cited the former Swedish release in retaliation to the overly promoted Twilight based upon a generic young adult novel series as well as starring some teen heart-throbs. While the latter work focuses more on a simple teen romance and the element of supernatural fantasy as spectacle, Let The Right One In merely uses vampirism as a narrative device to elicit questions of morality, violence, and androgynous identity.
A large portion of the viewers criticized the film for its seemingly pastiche “underdog getting bullied” setup that finds resolution through romance, or physical retaliation. While on the surface this seems valid, when one realizes the obvious moral ambiguity surrounding the main character dynamic, it seems somewhat illogical. If anything, it seems the pastiche is being used purposely to offer a critique or satire. By film’s end, both Oskar and Eli have committed violent acts that are ethically wrong but seem to go ignored. Eli kills countless victims and Oskar assists in this outcome several times. What is interesting is how the film successfully sets up the characters in a way in which the audience comes to naturally associate with Oskar and Eli on an emotional level. Their romance is childlike and seemingly innocent but presents a moral dilemma. Viewers easily ignore the violence in the narrative because they sympathize with Oskar and Eli almost wanting them to succeed. The way in which the violence is portrayed on screen parallels this notion, almost all the violent acts happen off screen or in the shadows. The viewer knows the extent of the gruesome acts yet is allowed to keep a distance.
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