Innocent blood lust
A week prior to requesting this DVD (and Blu-ray, which Eric Layman will provide a review for soon), I hadn’t heard of this film. My friend Travis mentioned it had come to the infamous Kentucky Theatre (old movie theater in downtown Lexington), and he mentioned that it was quite good. Interested, I checked it out on IMDB. A foreign film that has brought some scary attention to itself was the first thing I thought of. The story, if you’re not familiar, is about a very lonely boy named Oscar. Picked on by bullies and ignored by his parents, Oscar is quite possibly the loneliest boy in the entire world. He imagines a better life, one where he stands up for himself, but he never quite achieves it. Not until a strange new neighbor finds her way into his life. A young girl named Eli moves in next door and only shows herself during the evening hours. Intrigued, Oscar finds himself slowly falling for the strange girl. In turn, Eli soon finds herself falling in love with Oscar. Wanting to help Oscar, Eli teaches him to be more than he is and even helps out with his ‘bully’ issue. Oscar, thinking Eli is a tough girl, soon finds out what makes her strange and unique.
You would think from that description that the story is pretty straight forward. In a way, it is. There is a different hidden dimension to it though. Oscar is trying to find love and find something worthwhile. His life completely reflects the life of Eli. He has no one to love him, he’s constantly hunted and the only place he can find solace is within his room where no one can get him. Eli is the exact same way. She is lonely because she can’t travel during the daytime hours (if you haven’t guessed it, Eli is a vampire), she is constantly hunted because she can only feed on blood (which means murder for those who look for a killer) and her only solace is within a group of blankets covering her body during the day. Both lives parallel each other and thus are an unusually perfect fit with each other. You can even go as far as saying this is a very dark love story. Sure the kids are like 12, but their acting is pretty damn good. You will believe these two can only be with each other to find happiness. It’s touching and tragic at the same time. This is the story, this is the beef and this is what drives the viewer into continually watching.
Because of this, the vampire portion of the story is added in not as a ‘horror’ element, but as the bridging device to get them together. If Eli wasn’t a vampire, the story couldn’t have been believable. Isn’t that odd? Without that element, there isn’t love. That’s what I find particularly fascinating about the movie. It properly places the vampire backstory where it belongs. This odd cog in the machine fits like it completely belonged. Sure there is blood, there is death, there are scenes where you cringe, but the necessity of survival makes these scenes important. It doesn’t simply show you the need for killing, it shows you that this is the only way Eli can live. If Eli can’t have blood, Eli can’t function. It’s not a ‘horror’ theme, it’s just an ugly necessity.
Now, I have to give props to the cinematographer here as well. The movie was shot gorgeously. The night time scenes were beautiful, especially with the snowy locations. It creates a perfect mood for the story and sets it completely right. For a good portion of the film, you’re stuck in the apartment complex with Oscar. Not exactly the most exotic location, but still the silence of the night, the dark backdrop and the innocent snowy playground where Eli and Oscar meet is good enough for the situation. In fact, it’s perfect for the situation. Anyway, well shot and lit to set the mood perfectly. The pinnacle of beauty in the film is the pool scene at the end. It’s haunting, it’s tough to watch, but it’s perfectly done.
So are there any flaws? The movie leaves a lot of questions at the end. You want to know more about Eli, about where she originated from, her life and how she became a vampire. These never get answered. I’m not sure if this is just me wanting more of the story, but if they don’t make a sequel to explain her, I’ll simply throw a sh*t-fit. The other flaw of the film is that there is going to be an american version. If La Femme Nikita taught us anything it’s that america kills good ideas with remakes. I wish they wouldn’t do this, there isn’t a need.
Moving on…
The DVD itself isn’t as impressive as the Blu-ray. You get a better picture and much better audio on the Blu-ray version. Here you get DVD quality audio and video, but this movie deserves more. As for features, you get a small amount. You get the standard deleted scenes (which deserved to be cut) and the photo gallery and theatrical poster gallery. The beef of the features is the behind the scenes. It provides good insight to give the film a bit more depth.