We, The Infected

I managed to watch LTROI again tonight, first time in ages. I've started quite a few times but not finished because it's just too intense, too painful even. Like no other film I've ever seen. I'm usually in tears at the opening credits. Not a good way to start.

Tonight it hit me just how much this film is about relationships, and the complexity and conflict inherent in them. The ultimate scene on this theme, I think, is when Oskar confronted Eli about being a vampire. When he left, after telling her she killed people for money, he said "if you'll let me". He knew she could kill him. He knew she had killed many others. He was very pissed off with her and even afraid of her. And yet he challenged her - he scolded her and said he wanted to go home, if she would let him. He was totally relying on her regard for him despite his very negative attitude to her. This totally encapsulated his feelings - love and fear. And his expectation of the same from her towards him. Very powerful stuff.

crazychristina wrote:He was totally relying on her regard for him despite his very negative attitude to her. This totally encapsulated his feelings - love and fear. And his expectation of the same from her towards him. Very powerful stuff.

It is this intense power of "going for it", shown in this low key manner - just two kids - that makes the story so powerful to me.

crazychristina wrote:This totally encapsulated his feelings - love and fear. And his expectation of the same from her towards him.

Yes - we can clearly see in the preceding scene that Eli fears for her emotional safety, which is under threat from Oskar. Actually I'd say Eli's more afraid of Oskar at this point than the other way around, a powerful paradox.

The whole scene is very subtle and it has taken repeated viewings (and prompts from the novel) for me to catch on to what was going on. Everything becomes very serious and painful from the point when Oskar returns to Eli after leaving his Dad. At this point he has some real second thoughts about "going for it" and has become very angry and bitter towards Eli for not being entirely honest with him. Eli is put on the defensive and becomes emotionally fragile, just like her egg puzzle. Her clumsy attempt to fix things with the money back fires, badly.

crazychristina wrote: Tonight it hit me just how much this film is about relationships, and the complexity and conflict inherent in them. The ultimate scene on this theme, I think, is when Oskar confronted Eli about being a vampire. When he left, after telling her she killed people for money, he said "if you'll let me". He knew she could kill him. He knew she had killed many others. He was very pissed off with her and even afraid of her. And yet he challenged her - he scolded her and said he wanted to go home, if she would let him. He was totally relying on her regard for him despite his very negative attitude to her. This totally encapsulated his feelings - love and fear. And his expectation of the same from her towards him. Very powerful stuff.

crazychristina, looks to me like your infection has sunk its taproot DEEP under your skin. It also looks like you've grasped the movie's hard core.

You're looking at it from Oskar's perspective, something I've never really done. What impressed me with the scene you're talking about was Eli being backed back into her own kitchen while Oskar prosecutes his moral indignation. Pint sized little Eli who can massacre whole hordes of people of any size almost in less time than it take to tell - and has taken down uncounted thousands of fully grown men without help over the centuries - being backed into her own kitchen in her own apartment by a mere boy.

Can you imagine the Grim Reaper being backed into his own kitchen like that? I can't.

She's not afraid for her physical safety, that seems plain enough. What she's afraid of is something she can't fight because she doesn't understand what it is or the rules by which it operates. All she knows in that very moment is that her nearest and dearest friend - also, her newest friend - is Very Unhappy with her, and she can't fix it and make the awful go away.

This scene does indeed pack quite a bit of quiet and subtle punch.

sauvin wrote: She's not afraid for her physical safety, that seems plain enough. What she's afraid of is something she can't fight because she doesn't understand what it is or the rules by which it operates.

Not just that, but it's something against which her defences are pretty feeble, and she knows it. Oskar has the upper hand in this scene even though Eli has every conceivable material advantage, and at some level both of them know it.

Her little dark glance at the end of that scene always made me feel a bit uncomfortable.

a_contemplative_life wrote:Her little dark glance at the end of that scene always made me feel a bit uncomfortable.

Just a little?

sauvin wrote:

a_contemplative_life wrote:Her little dark glance at the end of that scene always made me feel a bit uncomfortable.

Just a little?

I don't see it as threatening but as bitter - Oskar, by saying 'if you'll let me' is really shooting to kill. The moment he says that he's ironically in no danger; deliberately or not, he's pressing home his advantage.

While Oskar and Eli's relationship is the most interesting one, others were also ambiguous and complex. Hakan and Eli for example. Especially in the hospital scene. And her ambiguous (non) response to his request that she not see that boy again. And (more from the book) Hakan's relationship with someone who was both young and old. I call Eli 'she' for convenience. Another ambiguous relationship issue. And, more conventionally, Lacke and Virginia. Nothing in this story was straight-forward.