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A brilliant reinvention of the vampire story, Tomas Alfredson's Let The Right One In is one of the finest movies you will see all year. He talks to FOCUS.
In spite of the critical acclaim that has greeted Tomas Alfredson's latest film it's interesting to note that the Swedish director is more accustomed to making audiences laugh than leap out of their seats.
"I'm mostly famous for doing comedies," he explains, "though some people say that there are scenes in this film that are slightly comical. There are blackly comic touches to some scenes."
Of course comedians tend to indulge in colourful language when they describe their interaction with an audience, 'I slayed them,', 'I died on stage' and all that. But there are more obvious parallels between the two genres than might at first be apparent.
"Well there's the aspect of timing of course. And also we feature a killer, a man who is the protector of the vampire. I thought it would be much more interesting if he was a frightened, clumsy killer. What happens if you're not a good killer, if you're very clumsy and very afraid? It’s like your teacher or your uncle or somebody who's doing this, and therefore it's also getting more horrific. But also it gets close to comedy."
This man is the protector of a young girl who is the sympathetic heartbeat of the film. Eli (Leana Andersson) moves in next door to shy and lonely Oskar (Kare Hadebrant). The two become fast friends, both being outsiders in a snowbound Swedish suburb in 1982. This setting, it transpires, was a deliberate choice of both John Ajvide Lindqvist's source novel and Alfredson's film.
"It could be set in any place really," the director notes, "or in any period. But when I read the book I thought I knew everything about it, about being lonely and 12 years old and in this cold country. If you have the possibility of being very specific that is a good thing for a filmmaker. I knew everything about this, and it's a very strange equation that the more specific you get the more universal your story becomes because of that."
This suburb has a particular significance for the Swedish people, representing as it does an idealism gone awry.
"We had 75 years of social democratic rule in a row," the director nods, 2and since we were very wealthy after the war the social democrats tried to create some sort of Utopia where everybody was supposed to be equal. They created these suburbs around Stockholm to be the perfect society to live in. It became very quiet and it didn’t work as it as meant to work. But it turned out to be a very good backdrop for this story."
Curiously, despite the quality of this tale, there is no tradition of vampire stories in Sweden though you would never think so watching it. The bond between the two young leads is actually quite sweet, and the violence is sparing, as much for economic as aesthetic reasons though it works wonderfully.
"Before we made the film a lot of people said it was impossible, without a Hollywood style mega-budget to make these scenes believable. But that economic limitation was a reality for me, to try to solve the special effects side of it, to make it secretive and quiet. I think if you're too graphic, too early it gets boring and it loses pressure. It's a little bit like striptease, you show a little here and a little there.
"And then you make some suggestions for the audience to fill in for themselves. Those images are much stronger than the images I could ever have made. The things you create inside your head are much stronger. So it was to find different ways to give clues and to give suggestions."
This, in the end, lends Let The Right One In an extraordinary power, as it tells its story with delicate touches, trusting in the audience to understand the significance of it all.
"I think it's very important to have a dialogue with the audience," Alfredson adds, "because most films today are monologues that are pushed in your face 'this is how it is and you have to accept it as it is,'. You're supposed to be passive in that process, but it's much more interesting to have this dialogue, 'what if?'."
ANWAR BRETT
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