Why/How do you relate to LtROI?

[Bloody Mary]

First things first: happy Halloween!

Why are you attracted to it? The Oskeli relationship? Their loneliness and isolation? The revenge scene?

I didn't like it at first; Eli seemed uncaring toward his victims, and Oskar didn't appear too concerned (okay, there was that scene where they discuss why Eli kills, but other than that it didn't really come up). A lot of people would say that the pool scene promotes revenge on people who hurt you, and we all know that's not a good way to go.

But on the other hand, I understood Oskar's need for revenge on Conny and the others, and his need to be with someone who cared about him, even if that someone ate people. I used to get bullied when I was a kid, up to the time I was about his age, and after most people grew out of that, I just didn't have many friends, being very shy and not knowing how to talk to anyone. It made sense, his stabbing trees and quickly attaching to Eli. That made a great fantasy--having someone to connect with on the level that these two did, and to swoop in, destroy the villains, and let you know you are safe.

JAL said in an interview that the pool scene was a vicarious revenge on his real-life Connys, which made me wonder how many people here had experiences like Oskar's that made the story more personal--not even just physical aggression, but something else? Or did you feel alone like he did? Seemed like it would take a certain kind of person to appreciate LtROI in spite of its brutality. (Another reason why we with the infection are cohesive.)

[jetboy]

Happy Halloween to you too.

I personally related to Oskar's story first and foremost, his being bullied and his fantasizing. It was very recognizable.

As for the revenge, it can be a fantasy of mine too but definitely staying in the fantasy realm but think its also a relevant movie for those whose fantasies may be creeping closer to becoming a reality, something an Eli could prevent.

[intrige]

What catched me first was the deep and sensere love story, between Oskar and Eli. At irst glance it was all I saw.
At second, however, I saw myself in Oskar. I was bullied merclessly from the age 13 to 16. And I was picked on when I was 12. Even though the bullying was different, and it came from almost everyone I knew. I sure would have like to have an Eli to fall back on. Like said before in this thread, it all made sense. The fantasies, the knife, the revenge and how Oskar carried himself. It was was me.

I am also a sucker for young love twinned in a smart and compelling plot.

[dongregg]

How to put this? I related to the bullying, but not in an Oskar-like role. I started hitting back when I was still pretty young, in elementary school. But big kid/little kid bullying persisted and had to dealt with. That only ended in high school when I got a reputation as a formidable fighter who would not hesitate to punch above his weight and who would keep up a furious counterattack no matter what.

Conny and his crew bullied other kids, as we see in the schoolyard when Oskar was watching them. I can relate to that, because certain older boys sort of take it on themselves to push younger boys around. The few real bullies are very mean, like Conny and Martin. I didn't experience it, but bullies will sometimes pick out a vulnerable target for special, longer-term attention. That would be Oskar and perhaps the kind of bullying that other forum members report having experienced.

Rather than experiencing the bullying in the film as something that I could strongly and viscerally relate to, the bullying mostly just seemed part of a real and believable world, like Gösta's cats, Håkan's jealousy, the rambling banter of the Sun Palace crowd, and--especially--the almost hermetically separate worlds of grownups and kids.

As for the violence (Eli as vampire and later as avenging angel), it just seemed like a ripping good yarn. It's not a movie for kids, so I don't see how it could be taken as the "wrong message." In The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, there is severe cruelty, and the bodies pile up at an alarming rate. Then the real message is delivered: Yankees and Rebels on the opposite sides of a river using cannons and all to kill each other at a rate not seen since the wars of the Roman Empire. But TGTB&TU isn't a kid movie, either.

So LTROI remained to me a pure and beautiful relationship story for several months (and still remains so). It was only when I joined WTI that I started paying attention to ethical issues that forum members felt a need to address. I hold my first viewing near to my heart, and it's about two kids who find each other, who end up bonding fiercely. Eli and Oskar are the two least likely kids in all of Blackeberg to find any kind of companionship; and yet, they not only find each other, but they experience a unique friendship that neither of them could ever hope to find again.

I also found a path back to my own chronic feelings of loneliness, which I think accounts in part for how much I love the film and how much I depend on the great minds and deep sensibilities of my fellow forum members.

[Bloody Mary]

Happy Halloween to you too.

Thanks, jetboy.

[cmfireflies]

I related to Oskar's loneliness and I'm drawn to LtROI's empathy of outsiders. The story to me is of two wounded souls finding solace in each other. I wasn't bullied, more overlooked, not on anyone's radar.

I really liked that this is a story about innocent love emerging triumphant, not one of the countless stories where innocence is a liability. The backdrop of violence inherent in Eli's existence emphasized their love, like a splash of white on a black background.

LtROI showed me what love is.

[Klesk]

I wasn’t bullied in my childhood. So I can’t really relate to that at first hand. With the love between Oscar and Eli it is quite different. When I was around ten years old I met my first love. Let the right on in reminds me of that: The mood, the atmosphere, the chemistry between the main actors. In my mind she was a vampire because she had so hungry eyes, when she looked at me.

Before that I experienced sexual infringement by a girl taller than me, maybe older, and an adult men. Maybe it was a kind of bullying too, but I would say, I reacted quick and appropriate to stop that. It is difficult to tell someone and ask for help. That adults didn’t helped me was more a kind of carte blanche for me to solve it on my own. It wasn’t a revenge thing. Rather something I did for my safety.

So the situation was in the beginning a little bit uncomfortable ( ) for me to let her closer to me and in my mind I connected it unconsciously with vampirism. The scene Oscar hugs Eli, I think my and Elis reaction were the same. But I was no wimpy kid and we became a couple. Unofficially, because everything should be hidden. No going steady, just keep things the way they were. For me going steady was like being married including ... well no not that ... I thought more of drinking coffee, eating cake, strolling around and talking the way parents do (How was your day, honey? Fine!). That was too adult for me and very boring.

I didn’t want that someone would noticed it, would notice that something is maybe wrong with us. Something that would disturb them and finally they would divide us. They would have asked questions, and I wouldn't have had any answers. In the book Oscar thinks the same, but for different reasons. Like in Romeo and Juliet. At this time I already had known the story, too.

[seigezunt]

I think this film touched me because of a combination of things.

1. I was bullied as a kid, so the final scene for me was somewhere between "I can can get behind that" and *stands up and cheers* The trees in my back yard as a kid took similar abuse-by-imagined-revenge.

2. I'm a 'shipper disguised as a film snob. I'm an old softy for a fish out of water romance.

3. I am really sick of American films with lousy narrative structure, and foreign films that have, um, no structure, and above all, this film had STORY.

4. It chose to be silent where other films choose to explain, loudly.

5. Big fan of WTF moments.

6. While I am pretty boring vanilla, I seem to gravitate to films that have transgressive gender stuff going on. Hedwig, Rocky Horror, etc.

7. the feels

8. the young actors were flawless.

9. No sparkling. I actually love the vampire genre, but hate most of the current stuff. I love how this was a film with a vampire that wasn't a vampire film. I love genre-breaking.

[dongregg]

On another thread, I asked if maybe we love LTROI so much because it is just a damn good film. I immediately dismissed that idea. I know there is more to it than that. But today I got a clue about LTROI and other great films, (such as Wings of Desire). The clue is an Ingmar Bergman quote:

"Film has dream, film has music. No form of art goes beyond ordinary consciousness as film does, straight to our emotions, deep into the twilight room of the soul."

1. Not every film can do that for me. (A film has to deliver the goods.)
2. The twilight room of my soul must be open, at least a crack. (I have to receive the goods.)

[BravoHotel]

Mine would be the bullying when young , as well as being the quiet murder spree plotting type of bullying victim. I can't say I've seen this representation of a bullying victim anywhere else and it just feels like JAL pointed out something that I, or people under these circumstances wouldn't openly admit. That some bullied kids really do behave and think like this. LTROI let me see what it would be like to have something that I used to imagine back then, having an Eli type supernatural protecter-friend.

That and JALs' vampire, I've only seen the invitation rule elsewhere in the lost boys, but it felt like more of a technicality than a drawback, in LTROI however it plays a huge part, something about how such an apex predator can be stopped by such a small thing. Something about the way it feels as well I can't explain but it was used so well.

Plus the fact that Eli is a child, we see immortal characters in films all the time as adults but a child is new and to be so old and so young simultaniously really helps to put living forever into perspective and it is not glamourous.