I have to go sit on my balcony and look at the greenery for a while.
So! An impromptu movie review.
I've now seen Let The Right One In the movie, and, well. I have opinions. The first of them is that the book is so ridiculously much better that it's frankly embarrassing.
Don't get me wrong, I see why people love this movie. But the reasons why a lot of people would like this movie, are the same reasons I really don't. It's a very Swedish movie is the thing, understated, quiet, awkward. This is why I spent the first hour wanting to die, and the next hour wondering where all the fun of the book had gone. It is a very pretty movie, the visuals are beautiful, but everything that I loved about the book is gone.
The book isn't very action-y at all, but the movie actually manages to be even less so. Even the murders manage to be exercises in cinematic realism. There is no inventive cutting, the dialogue is stilted and quiet and the silences speak volumes just like it would be in real life and the realism of the piece is so depressing the only reason I finished the damn thing was because I'd read the book and I knew it gets better. While the book is all about the slow build -- what's going on? what was that? can it be? -- the movie is more about a slow putter that eventually comes to a slightly faster putter.
I loved the book. I adored the book. But there are about four billion storylines in it that just can't fit in a movie, and it just so happens that the Eli/Oskar storyline was the one I found the slowest. The movie isn't BAD as such, it's just not my kind of movie. I don't like them slow or understated or quiet, and if they're going to be quiet, at least give me some background music so I have something to occupy my mind with. Anything, Jesus.
I'm going to give them this: it is very pretty. This guy gets the reality of the environment with a camera in a way that few people do. However. This is what winter looks like, and if you've seen the damn thing every year of your existence, all it ends up doing (for me) is creating this oppressive sort of loneliness and despair and depression that is, well. Depressing. I have seen it before. In six months I will see it again and it'll be just as dreadful as every other year, no matter how the ice sparkles in the sunlight or how pretty the sky is the scant hours the sun deigns to rise above the horizon.
This is one of those, "wow, the trailer was so much better than the movie" type deals, and now that I've seen it, I don't ever have to touch it again. And people wonder why I dislike Swedish film.
I've now seen Let The Right One In the movie, and, well. I have opinions. The first of them is that the book is so ridiculously much better that it's frankly embarrassing.
Don't get me wrong, I see why people love this movie. But the reasons why a lot of people would like this movie, are the same reasons I really don't. It's a very Swedish movie is the thing, understated, quiet, awkward. This is why I spent the first hour wanting to die, and the next hour wondering where all the fun of the book had gone. It is a very pretty movie, the visuals are beautiful, but everything that I loved about the book is gone.
The book isn't very action-y at all, but the movie actually manages to be even less so. Even the murders manage to be exercises in cinematic realism. There is no inventive cutting, the dialogue is stilted and quiet and the silences speak volumes just like it would be in real life and the realism of the piece is so depressing the only reason I finished the damn thing was because I'd read the book and I knew it gets better. While the book is all about the slow build -- what's going on? what was that? can it be? -- the movie is more about a slow putter that eventually comes to a slightly faster putter.
I loved the book. I adored the book. But there are about four billion storylines in it that just can't fit in a movie, and it just so happens that the Eli/Oskar storyline was the one I found the slowest. The movie isn't BAD as such, it's just not my kind of movie. I don't like them slow or understated or quiet, and if they're going to be quiet, at least give me some background music so I have something to occupy my mind with. Anything, Jesus.
I'm going to give them this: it is very pretty. This guy gets the reality of the environment with a camera in a way that few people do. However. This is what winter looks like, and if you've seen the damn thing every year of your existence, all it ends up doing (for me) is creating this oppressive sort of loneliness and despair and depression that is, well. Depressing. I have seen it before. In six months I will see it again and it'll be just as dreadful as every other year, no matter how the ice sparkles in the sunlight or how pretty the sky is the scant hours the sun deigns to rise above the horizon.
This is one of those, "wow, the trailer was so much better than the movie" type deals, and now that I've seen it, I don't ever have to touch it again. And people wonder why I dislike Swedish film.