The Movie...Let the Right One In
SPOILERS GALORE….Only Continue Reading if You’ve Already Enjoyed the Film!! The movie’s great and if you’re a fan of foreign, horror, coming of age, or vampires, I suggest you check it out.
But what bothered me was the unstated, though very present, undercurrents of sexuality related to a 12-year-old vampire. There is a shot in the film that shows a close up of Eli’s frontal, unpantied body. NUDITY IN A 12-YEAR-OLD GIRL? REALLY? Is that ever appropriate, except if we’re catering to degenerates? Though I didn’t recognize it as such, one of my NFriends thought the shot shows a scar. Twice during the film, Eli says that she is not a girl and her comments might be referring to the fact that she’s dead. But is that true?
We know Eli is old, surely too old to have gone through any type of surgery while she was alive for a sex change or intersexual condition. But if it is indeed a scar, that’s where the package would have been. ALSO THERE’S THE ISSUE OF HER “FATHER,” who can’t possibly be, because he isn’t old enough. So, was he selected when he too was 11 years old? As a grown man, are we to assume that their relationship is platonic or paternal? If Oskar is the chosen “father” replacement, will she become his girlfriend as he grows older? Though her body is 12, this girl has been around for a while and I think there is another aspect to this story that is only hinted at.
Ok, the sexual parts of this speculation are icky, but as many people have already mentioned, this is a dark story and I’m interested in what the filmmakers were striving for…because I don’t believe a story of this nature (12-year-old-vicious-monster-when-she-needs-to-be) would not dare to tread on such slippery, possibly tabooed, slopes. Or maybe I’m the degenerate, seeing sexual situations where none exist. Even if it’s to tell me I’m full of crap, what do YOU think?
But what bothered me was the unstated, though very present, undercurrents of sexuality related to a 12-year-old vampire. There is a shot in the film that shows a close up of Eli’s frontal, unpantied body. NUDITY IN A 12-YEAR-OLD GIRL? REALLY? Is that ever appropriate, except if we’re catering to degenerates? Though I didn’t recognize it as such, one of my NFriends thought the shot shows a scar. Twice during the film, Eli says that she is not a girl and her comments might be referring to the fact that she’s dead. But is that true?
We know Eli is old, surely too old to have gone through any type of surgery while she was alive for a sex change or intersexual condition. But if it is indeed a scar, that’s where the package would have been. ALSO THERE’S THE ISSUE OF HER “FATHER,” who can’t possibly be, because he isn’t old enough. So, was he selected when he too was 11 years old? As a grown man, are we to assume that their relationship is platonic or paternal? If Oskar is the chosen “father” replacement, will she become his girlfriend as he grows older? Though her body is 12, this girl has been around for a while and I think there is another aspect to this story that is only hinted at.
Ok, the sexual parts of this speculation are icky, but as many people have already mentioned, this is a dark story and I’m interested in what the filmmakers were striving for…because I don’t believe a story of this nature (12-year-old-vicious-monster-when-she-needs-to-be) would not dare to tread on such slippery, possibly tabooed, slopes. Or maybe I’m the degenerate, seeing sexual situations where none exist. Even if it’s to tell me I’m full of crap, what do YOU think?
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by ocontraire on -
Come on, people. This is a lower torso "mock-up" of a"sexless" being. Similar to any
clothing store child mannequin with a mock-up of horiz. sutures merely to HIGHLIGHT
Eli's statement that "she" is not a girl.
My wife and I caught this film TWICE in the theater after reading early reviews.
What a wonderful film and a relief after 15-20 yrs of the genre being reduced to "slasher films."
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Permalink Reply by Pihk on -
An interesting article from 1960 about Kubrick and Walt Disney that broadly ties into this discussion:
Two men with very different ideas on making films - and money (1960)
LONDON - Except for the fact that they both happen to be making films
about children, Mr. Walt Disney and Mr. Stanley Kubrick have little in
common. The children about whom they are making their respective films
have even less in common.
Mr. Disney's child star, Hayley Mills, plays identical twins who bring
their divorced parents together. Mr. Kubrick's child star, Sue Lyon,
plays Lolita, an American schoolgirl of twelve who seduces a middle-
aged man.
Mr. Disney and Mr. Kubrick clearly have somewhat different ideas of
what constitutes entertainment. Mr. Kubrick said that he would not
allow a daughter of his to see certain Walt Disney films because they
contained an excessive amount of violence and brutality. On the other
hand, he felt that any child who was too young to see Lolita wouldn't
understand it, and any child who did understand it was, for this
reason old enough to see the film.
Mr. Disney had some pretty sharp things to say about the current
preoccupation with themes of a sexual nature. "It's kinda disgusting,"
he said. "If you can't find anything to say about people except sordid
things you shouldn't make films. I always felt you ought to deal with
the nice side of life. I mean all the stuff about incest in the home,
well there's a lot of homes where that just doesn't exist. The reason
these sort of films are made is that the people who make them figure
they're gonna make some easy dough that way. That's the only reason
they make them."
Mr. Kubrick said he wasn't interested in making money. He had been
offered a million dollars plus 50 per cent of the profits to make
Lolita for Warner Brothers, but he had turned down the offer because
it would have meant handing over artistic control to a big Hollywood
studio.
He wanted to make Lolita his way. He could prove that he was not
primarily interested in making money: he had spent the first ten years
of his career as a director not making any. He had received no salary
for directing his two most highly praised films, The Killing and Paths
of Glory. Instead, he had agreed to work for a percentage of the
profits. As neither film has yet made a profit, Mr. Kubrick hasn't
made any money.
"For the first ten years of my career" said Mr. Kubrick, "I only
earned money for not directing films. I was paid to make a film for
MGM that never got made. And I was paid in full by Marlon Brando to
direct One Eyed Jacks, but we disagreed and I left. I started off by
making short documentaries with my own money and I sold them at a
loss."
Mr. Kubrick has, of course, been paid for directing his most recent
film, Spartacus.
Mr. Disney who created Mickey Mouse, at just about the time when Mr.
Kubrick was born, said he didn't have any money either. "All I have,"
he said "is in my studio. At present we own about 25 million dollars
to different lending agencies. I've got about 7.000.000 dollars tied
up in British productions alone and Disneyland represents an
investment of around 33 million dollars. But I personally haven't got
anything. We finally managed to pay off the mortgage on our home about
a year ago. To me, making films is sort of an obligation. I have a
studio to keep going. I have a staff of around 1500 people that I have
to keep employed."
To Mr. Kubrick the cinema is not just an industry but also an art.
"The reason I am making Lolita," he said, "is because I consider it to
be a masterpiece. "It would be hypocrisy for me to pretend that I am
unaware of the notoriety of the book, but I am not allowing that in
any way to corrupt the intention behind the making of the film. I have
absolutely no misgivings about it. I think it is a perfectly suitable
subject of entertainment. It is a great love story."
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Permalink Reply by Pihk on
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(con'd)
Mr. Kubrick said he had not yet decided whether Lolita and her middle-
aged lover would actually be seen kissing in the film. "We're thinking
about that," he said.
Mr. Disney said he was sad to see that even his old friend, Alfred
Hitchcock, had now begun to overplay sex in his films. "A film like
Psycho I just wouldn't want to see. I don't see why Hitch makes stuff
like that. Hitch don't need to. A while ago he wanted to shoot a
sequence in my Amusement Park, Disneyland. I can imagine what he
wanted to do. Have somebody pushed off one of my rides. I said no. I
don't hold with that sort of thing. Same as when I was approached to
let Hayley Mills, who's under contract to me, play Lolita. I wouldn't
want her to see it, let alone play it."
If any conclusion can be drawn from all this it is that there are some
films which are not fit for children to see and some that are only fit
for children to see. On the whole, I prefer the former.
The Insider's Newsletter, December 1960
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Permalink Reply by Alice on -
I must admit, I didn't think nearly so much into these things as you have! I didn't see the least bit of sexual context in the [very] brief nudity scene. Oskar was curious like any young boy would be, glanced in, realised he shouldn't have, and quickly pulled away. I've noticed that foreign films are a little more liberal with shots of nudity. The French film 'Innocence' shows scenes of very young girls topless, but when watched in the context of the film, you know there's nothing sexual about it. The film is about a school for young girls to protect them from the world of post-puberty until they're ready. It's as the title so concisely states: Innocence. I didn't find it the least bit offensive, and it certainly wasn't meant to cater to these degenerates of which you speak.
Are you saying a transgender girl is not a girl? Let's not be silly, of course they are. Tut, tut. I noticed the scar also, though in my mind, it was to make her seem more vampire-y. Scars, blood, dead eyes, all part of the portrait. I think that when she was insisting to Oskar that she wasn't a girl, she was trying to get him to understand that she wasn't a girl in the way he would think of girls his own age. She's existed for a long time, she doesn't go to school, she doesn't go out and play in the sunlight, etc. I'm not a girl, [I'm a vampire]. It seemed like she didn't like to admit that last part, but she still wanted Oskar to know what he was getting into.
I think that her 'father' was someone she must have met while this person was still older. He became sort of her adopted father. I think her relationship with him was different than that of Oskar's because of the way they functioned together. Or, it could have started off the way it did with Oskar, but as the guy got older, he took on a more parental role because he still loved her, but the age difference got to be too much. It's like the Tuck Everlasting thing, one person gets physically older while the other stays the same. It's bound to change some things. It's complicated either way, but I didn't see any weird sexual situations, personally.
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Permalink Reply by staahsha on -
Thank you, Alice for articulating exactly what I had been feeling about this film but was too tongue-tied to write! What a relief! ;o)
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Permalink Reply by Donna Loves Movies on -
Okay, okay...the degenerate is apparently me!
But, I can't really comment much more on it because I'm reading the book and it is providing answers to so many of my questions. I think what tripped me up was that the movie included snippets from the novel but not enough to explain why they were there. Hence, confusion. I've written more on it on page two of this discussion, if you're interested.
The book is a first novel and if you like reading, it's very well written and is providing more depth to the film.
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Permalink Reply by Pihk on
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So apparently the subtitles of the American DVD are seriously dumbed down and lose all the black humor and character subtleties of the theatrical version:
http://iconsoffright.com/news/2009/03/let_the_wrong_subtitles_in_to...
What nonsense. I guess I'll skip this title entirely unless I run into a faithful version of the theatrical cut.
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