Quotes About Love, Fitting for LTROI

[TΛPETRVE]

Me?

[gattoparde59]

Heavens No!

You are not playing any games. You are just giving your perspective and I think you are not alone on this subject.

[genie47]

Why does every little thing have to be such a goddamn game of semantic chess?

Sorry, that metaphor does not work for me. Try "verbal Hungry Hungry Hippos."

Oh my! This Hungry Hungry Hippos toy is that girl in my avatar's favorite. She plays left hand verses right hand.

[Lacenaire]

I have been hesitating whether to bring this up here but since Lombano has already given examples of what he views as the best portrayal's of "true love" in literature and film I think I am entitled to my own: I think the best depiction of love in film can be found in the film I took my screen name from "Les Enfants du Paradis" by Marcel Carne (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Children_of_Paradise). You can see in it all the aspects that have been discussed in this thread and the variety of love and all the contradictions of love: the elusiveness of "true love", the close relation between love, jealousy and hatred, the selfishness and selfless sacrifice that seem always to accompany love, often at the same time, the clash between the need for love and the equally powerful need for freedom (for the elusive heroine Garance love is the main thing in life except for her freedom, which she will not sacrifice to it). Even though this film and LTROI are in most respects as different as possible yet when I watched LTROI my thought on several occasions wondered towards “Les Enfants”. Although it is almost impossible to find anything in common in the story, setting or the characters yet both cases one has that very feeling of catching an actual glimpse of something that often talked about but very rarely actually seen or felt - which I think is exactly what this thread has been about.

[DMt.]

I'll look out for it, sounds interesting.

[Wolfchild]

Eli is very much a feral child. Perhaps Eli has survived as well as she has because of the love she received from her family before she became a vampire?

Perhaps this takes this thread off topic, but I don't really think that Eli can be characterized as a feral child. Isn't it generally agreed that Eli's development ceased at the point at which she was turned? The film doesn't really comment on this except when Eli says that she has been twelve for along time. Indeed, the film doesn't comment on her childhood or family life at all, but if you want to take it that she did having a loving family during her childhood, then all of her development would have taken place in the context of that family. There has been no development during her life as a vampire. Maybe this is the key to how she has retained her grip on her humanity and the basically good aspects of her character. By being "frozen" as who she was at the time when she was turned, she is also frozen against the evil and horror that now make up her existence.

[Lacenaire]

Once I explicitly brought up this issue of love and freedom, which plays such a central part in “Les Enfants du Paradis”, I began to feel that actually it is also present though in a much more veiled form in LTROI and thinking about it made me again somewhat loose my confidence about the story. These are, by the way, genuine doubts and not something I am introducing to continue some sort of “game of chess” as has been alleged and I am not at all interested in winning any debates, I am only “thinking aloud” and trying to resolve the doubts that have again arisen in my mind. Also, by “the story” I mean basically the story as conceived by JAL and TA and not my own interpretation of the film, which I created partly to remove some of the things that I find troubling about the original story (and some things that I just find too unpleasant).

The issue really does concern “freedom” - Oskar’s freedom. Is Oskar really making a “free choice” and is he not perhaps giving up his freedom in a way that would make us doubt the “happy ending” view of the film?

I hasten to clarify two things. Firstly, I am not going to try to argue that Oskar’s feeling for Eli is not “love” but "infatuation". In fact, I really do not accept the distinction between love and “infatuation” that lombano introduced in connection with Romeo and Juliet. If infatuation is really not love than there are, in my opinion, even better reasons for thinking of Oskars feelings as “infatuation” - after all, he is only 12, he has never had a friend, etc. etc. Both Romeo and even Juliet are much more experienced, for a start. But I don’t think this is really important - normally the only way we distinguish “infatuation” and “love” is with hindsight - when things go badly we say “it was just an infatuation”. I don’t consider this way of distinguishing between things that we otherwise find indistinguishable at all helpful for any understanding.

(Of course the situation is somewhat different in the case of theatrical plays and films, because there the actors can actually create a visible distinction even between such phenomena as infatuation and love. My question about Romeo and Juliet is, in some sense, unanswerable because how one sees this relationship will very much depend on how it is acted in a particular performance. The way we see the relationship between Oskar and Ei is also not just a matter of the story but how Lina and Kare act it out. But right now I am leaving this issue aside).

Also, the way I see it, love need not be “wise”. In fact, the first love of very young people, in this case children, is unlikely to be wise, in the sense that it will to a happy future for both. I think for many people this is already the source of the problem with the film: they just don’t think that Oskar is making a wise choice, even if they accept that Eli’s love for him is genuine. Many find the latter idea doubtful simply because of the asymmetric situation of the two characters. Even if they accept that Eli is really 12, everyone can see that her life is already as bad as it can possibly get. But for Oskar it can get much worse. Of course, in the film the time on the train can be seen as providing a measure of happiness that compensates for all the sacrifice Oskar is making, but this does not affect the question of whether he is making a wise decision at the time of making it. There are many cases of tragic, doomed love, a love that leads to terrible, destructive choices. There is no use pretending that everything is destined for a happy end. Quite often choosing love is choosing a terribly unhappy one.

Still, I don’t think the problem whether the choice is “wise” or not affects the question of whether the feeling that lead to this choice is “true love” or not. I am sure that an un-wise love is just as much (if not more) love than a wise version. But the question of freedom I see as much more difficult.

Is Oskar acting freely when he decided to run away with Eli? Can a 12-year old in his situation really make a free choice? In other words, could he have made a different choice?

It may seem that I am resurrecting the “manipulation view” - Oskar is not making a “free decision” because he has been “manipulated” by a much wiser and more experienced Eli. I am sure that many who subscribe to the manipulation view point do so simply because they just don’t accept that a 12-year old is capable of making a genuinely free choice in this sort of matter (in particular, many people would argue that a “free choice” is a “fully informed” choice). For example, laws of most countries would not accept this kind of choice by a 12-year old as a “free choice”. But again this is not a problem for me for I have never felt any convincing evidence for the “manipulation theory”.

What I find troubling is this. First, Eli has done so much for Oskar that he owes a huge debt of gratitude to her. Second, Oskar (in the film) is such a thoroughly good person (the way I see him, anyway). The problem is that the more gratitude Oskar owes to Eli and the better person he is, the less freedom he has in this matter. In fact, I can’t conceive of him refusing to go with Eli after what she does for him in the swimming pool any more than I can conceive of him not inviting her in when she starts bleeding. And, unlike “wisdom” I feel that freedom is a necessary condition of true love. There are well know cases of person’s who married someone out of a deep sense of gratitude only to discover that this is not the same as love.

Moreover, because Oskar is such a good person, once he makes this decision he is also depriving himself of any future freedom to reverse it. He will stay with Eli out of obligation whether he really wants to do so or not. (This of course is immaterial in the final scene on the train but is significant in the way we see Oskar’s decision to follow Eli).

So with in view of all that, I am not at all surprised if even people who accept that Eli loves Oskar still find this a deeply disturbing and even depressing film.

The only “solution” that I see for myself to this problem (apart from changing the story in the way I have done for myself) lies again in the “fighting scene”. The reason is that there we see Oskar’s feelings for Eli clearly unburdened by any sense of obligation or gratitude. In fact, the fact that he gets carried away and hits her kind of makes things better. If the thought of how much he owes her was really in his mind he probably could not have done it (of course this is still before the swimming pool so his gratitude is not yet as great as it must be later). Instead we see the two children loving each other’s company and friendship for its own sake, with no other motive but the pleasure of being together - exactly as in the train scene.

This scene does make me feel that Oskar’s choice is his real, free choice and therefore it is a choice of love. But the fact that this scene is not in the film makes it harder to judge whether Oskar is acting freely or not and clearly Alfredson deliberately decided not to make it clear (which I personally would have preferred him to do). This makes the film more troubling and it also makes it harder to assert with full confidence that this is a film about "pure love", although of course any one can freely make the choice to see the film in this way.

[PeteMork]

What I find troubling is this. First, Eli has done so much for Oskar that he owes a huge debt of gratitude to her. Second, Oskar (in the film) is such a thoroughly good person (the way I see him, anyway). The problem is that the more gratitude Oskar owes to Eli and the better person he is, the less freedom he has in this matter. In fact, I can’t conceive of him refusing to go with Eli after what she does for him in the swimming pool any more than I can conceive of him not inviting her in when she starts bleeding. And, unlike “wisdom” I feel that freedom is a necessary condition of true love. There are well know cases of person’s who married someone out of a deep sense of gratitude only to discover that this is not the same as love.

Moreover, because Oskar is such a good person, once he makes this decision he is also depriving himself of any future freedom to reverse it. He will stay with Eli out of obligation whether he really wants to do so or not. (This of course is immaterial in the final scene on the train but is significant in the way we see Oskar’s decision to follow Eli).

Good point. I hadn’t thought of it quite this way, but I think love and this sense of obligation you speak of may be inextricably related: He feels more obligated because he loves her? Would this ‘obligation’ be as strong, or exist at all if he didn’t love her? In other words, would Oskar’s basic sense of gratitude really be strong enough to allow him to make a decision to leave everything he knew behind, which, for a 12-year-old, would be a truly frightening step to make, if he were not in love with her?

And of course, the differences between the book and film, as you pointed out, make this type of analysis more difficult. For myself, I tend to cherry-pick those things in the film and book I like the best, and build my own Oskar and Eli.

[Lacenaire]

Good point. I hadn’t thought of it quite this way, but I think love and this sense of obligation you speak of may be inextricably related: He feels more obligated because he loves her? Would this ‘obligation’ be as strong, or exist at all if he didn’t love her? In other words, would Oskar’s basic sense of gratitude really be strong enough to allow him to make a decision to leave everything he knew behind, which, for a 12-year-old, would be a truly frightening step to make, if he were not in love with her?

And of course, the differences between the book and film, as you pointed out, make this type of analysis more difficult. For myself, I tend to cherry-pick those things in the film and book I like the best, and build my own Oskar and Eli.

On the other hand, can you imagine Oskar telling Eli to run away by herself after she had rescued him in the swimming pool? The step he takes is indeed truly frightening if he thinks out the consequences but he can also just do it, on the spur of the moment, so to speak, run away now and worry about it later. It may be easier than saying "no I am not going". If put myself in his shoes I tend to think that I would not be able to say: you go alone, I will stay to face the police etc. It's just too hard to imagine. Things would be easier if they chose to run away immediately after Lacker's death, when it's Eli that has reasons to be grateful to Oskar, but that would, of course, make for a much less interesting story.

[PeteMork]

On the other hand, can you imagine Oskar telling Eli to run away by herself after she had rescued him in the swimming pool? The step he takes is indeed truly frightening if he thinks out the consequences but he can also just do it, on the spur of the moment, so to speak, run away now and worry about it later. It may be easier than saying "no I am not going". If put myself in his shoes I tend to think that I would not be able to say: you go alone, I will stay to face the police etc. It's just too hard to imagine. Things would be easier if they chose to run away immediately after Lacker's death, when it's Eli that has reasons to be grateful to Oskar, but that would, of course, make for a much less interesting story.

Certainly, as a 12-year-old, I could see him doing it for these reasons, and I agree; at that moment, seeing a headless corpse by the pool, it might even be a no-brainer - and he would feel like a putz to leave Eli to her own fate. Planning ahead is not a strong suit of the typical 12-year-old. However, I do think it would be much harder, if not impossible, for him to make such a decision if he had a loving, supportive, stable family, with siblings, perhaps. In other words, wouldn’t this spur-of-the-moment decision still involve a conscious weighing of at least those two options?