Self Initiated Project Contextual Reference: Let the Right One In

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sZJUgsZ56vQ

‘Let the Right One In’ is the Swedish adaptation of the novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist; made in 2008 and directed by Tomas Alfredson. It is a film about a twelve year old boy called Oskar who is terribly tormented by bullies and who finds friendship, love and a means for revenge in Eli, a vampire.

I’ve decided to use this film as a source for inspiration for my own film, as I adore the relationship that is portrayed between Eli and Oskar. Despite the dark backdrop to the plot, Eli is essentially a 13 year old girl who feels the same sense of loneliness and disconnection from the real world as Oskar does; because of this their relationship has the very essence of childhood innocence to it.

I would love to recreate this intensity of care that is found between them, yet also the feeling of impending change that is prevailant throughout the film – this change does not pull them apart but brings them closer. To use that intensity in a downplayed way is something that really helps to make the film to be fresh, not cliched.

Another element of the film that I have, in a way, manipulated into fitting with the themes and ideas of my Self-Initiated project are the words that Eli writes in the note she leaves Oskar when they spend the night together. “To flee is life, to linger is death.” In the sense of ‘Let the Right One in’ she is revealing her vulnerability to sunlight, but for my own purposes I have interpreted this to also reflect the fragility of her and Oskar’s friendship, and how without moving forward they won’t flourish together.

Despite the wonderful clarity in the cinematography 0f this film, I want to take a more conceptual approach to taking influences from it. The relationship is similar to the relationship I want to create for the characters in my short film, and the idea of fragility yet intensity is also interesting to me.