(2008; Låt den Rätte Komma In, Swedish) After twilight come sweet dreams. A pale, frail, bookish, blond boy, Oskar (Kare Hedebrant), desires revenge against Conny, a bullying classmate, and his two pals, who taunt him, calling him "piggy." Sensing Oscar's frustration, attracted to his quest for vengeance, Eli (Lina Leandersson), a raven-haired girl who has recently moved in to the apartment next door, makes an acquaintanceship (watching Oskar attack a tree with his knife) in the snowy courtyard: "Just so you know, I can't be your friend."

Eli, who walks in the snow in bare feet without ill-effect, lives with her protector, an older man (when neighbors find him antisocial, one suggests he may be Russian) completely devoted to her, whose responsibility is to procure human blood from victims for her; but when his efforts repeatedly fail, she attacks a man on her own, leaving the corpse for her guardian to dispose of. A witness to the murder, Lacke, the victim's buddy, tells his wife, Ginia, and another friend what he'd seen but not the authorities.

Sharing his Rubik's cube with Eli, Oskar's astonished when she solves it; she also tells him how to solve his problem with Conny: "Hit back. Hard," assuring him she'll help if needed. To communicate through the wall between their apartments, Oskar teaches Eli Morse code. Failing Eli once again, her protector (not a vampire) sacrifices himself for her.

Adapting his novel for director Tomas Alfredson's fascinating film of a vampire permanently twelve unable to resist developing a relationship with, eventually a dependency on, a twelve-year-old child, similarly bewitched by her, John Ajvide Lindqvist has set his pre-adolescent love story (not without sly touches of sardonic humor) in early 1980s Stockholm with Soviet Communists (the 20th-century's Transylvania?) just across the border.

The victims, Swedes - one of whom after surviving Eli's bite is attacked by cats and bursts into flames in the hospital when the blinds are opened to the sunlight - do not take hold of our sympathies.

Returned to his divorced mother's flat again after spending time with his father, Oskar gives Eli permission (as he will learn later, "You have to invite me in," for otherwise she cannot come inside without suffering corporal corruption) to enter his bedroom through the window (flying from hers to his); she climbs into bed with him, naked and cold as ice to the touch. "Want to go steady?" he asks. "I'm not a girl," she answers. Since this makes no difference to Oskar, Eli says prophetically: "It'll be you and me."

How Eli (no fangs are ever displayed) became a vampire isn't revealed, though it's clear she's been one a long while. With the apartment's windows covered, she sleeps in the bathroom tub (makeshift coffin) during daylight. Before realizing she's one of the undead, Oskar slices his hand with his knife for a ritual mixing of blood with hers, the sight of which sends Eli into a frenzy, first licking the drips of blood off the floor, then screaming at him to escape, before fleeing away from him.

A glimpse of her scarred pubic area suggests she's been surgically altered, perhaps to prevent her ever becoming a mature woman or menstruating. She gives Oskar a handwritten note with a heart: "I must be gone and live or stay and die." Long ago her protector may once have fallen in love with her as Oskar has.

The real horror of the film - two children, a girl forever prepubescent and a boy enslaved to her, locked into a fatal affection - is kept in the background; though the aftermath of Eli's attacks are bloody, her face and clothing smeared, the grisliest scenes are somewhat discreet and mostly viewed from a distance.

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Copyright © 2008 Patrick Ivers. All rights reserved.
Reproduced with the permission of the copyright holder.

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