Best movie I have seen in a while - "Let the Right One In"

[il d00d]

I have always thought that Martin Scorsese did violence right.  A good example for me is the scene in Goodfellas where Henry attacks Karen's neighbor for getting handsy with her.  In the scene, Henry skids into Karen's driveway, asks where the neighbor is, walks across the street, and beats the neighbor in the face a number of times with the butt end of a revolver.  Henry walks back, and asks Karen to hide the gun.  That was supposed to be a pivotal moment for her - the narration goes something like "when a man asks you to hide a gun for him.. " but the preceding scene has always stuck with me.   It was as brutal and raw and ugly as though you had witnessed it and not just watched it.

If I made movies, I would try to do that.  No soaring music, camera play, or other embellishment is needed when you can simply show what real violence looks like.  It is far more compelling that way.

I say all this, because this movie takes this approach, and does it well.  Also, I was glad to see this treatment applied to a supernatural theme and have it work.  On paper, "realistic" and "fantasy" should not go together, but when they do and it is done well, it makes for some of my favorite movies and books.  To make this sound like an even more unlikely combination of elements, the movie is a story about a 12-year-old vampire and an 11-year old boy that befriends her.

I think movie reviews fail when they give away too much, even when trying to sketch out the plot.  If a reviewer points out some finer point that I probably would have noticed when I watched, that's like chewing someone else's gum.  So I will leave it at this - if anything so far has made you curious, and you don't reject films on the basis of being subtitled, foreign or the slightest bit arty, I think you will enjoy the movie.  I would even recommend it if you do.

So, check it out - I don't think it is in theaters anymore, so you may need to resort to other means to get it.  Happy viewing

[zarn02]

hm.

*jots it down on the list*