Let the Right One in

Colour, 35 mm
Sweden, 2008, 114 min
Section: Another View

Synopsis

This unconventional vampire horror is set in a dreary Swedish suburb, the home of the outsider protagonist Oskar and his new neighbour and the latter’s daughter Eli. The peculiar pair of children become close and Oskar discovers that his friend is a vampire. Oskar has a hard time deciding whether to continue to consort with the strange girl – but there is something drawing him inevitably closer to her all the same... The film is based on the bestselling novel by John Ajvide Lindqvist and is similar to the gloomy films of the likes of Roy Andersson. The terrifying fairytale plays out at a slow pace and adheres to the rules of the vampire genre - the relationship between Eli and Oskar may be more platonic in light of their age but this film, like many other vampire movies, is nonetheless terrifyingly, even pathologically, romantic. At the same time however it is not only the magnificent performances of the child actors and the fact that it takes place in a snow-swept suburb that makes the film strangely cold. A captivating, suggestive and murkily beautiful film while no less bloody and disturbing – just the way real cinematic art should be.

About the director

Tomas Alfredson (b. 1965, Lidingö, Stockholm, Sweden), actor and director, is the creator of a number of shorts and television movies as well as the feature films Bert: The Last Virgin (Bert: Den siste oskulden, 1995), Kontorstid (2003) and Four Shades of Brown (Fyra nyanser av brunt, 2004), which was presented at the 2004 KVIFF in the Variety Critics’ Choice section. His fourth feature film, Let the Right One in (2008) brought him the Swedish National Award for Best Film and was also screened at the film festival in Rotterdam and the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. Tomas Alfredson is the brother of actor and director Daniel Alfredson and the son of actor/director Hans Alfredson, who starred in the films The Adventures of Picasso (1978), Bergman’s Shame (1968) and an adaptation of Sofie’s World (1999).