I've guess I've forgotten how

[crazychristina]

Watching the film again. Rubik's cube scene. Aren't you cold? No. Why not? I guess I've forgotten how.

Oskar is concerned. Eli is honest - lost touch with being human.

[Ash]

On the physical level perhaps he did, but there are many other instances in both the film and novel which show he still possessed the human spirit.
Their race to the kiosk, play in the basement and Eli's concern for Hakan (even if misplaced), show Eli as being very much human.
JAL gave us the hollow-woman and the Lord and his friends to show us the antithesis to being human. And I wouldn't put Eli in their category, would you?

[crazychristina]

On the physical level perhaps he did, but there are many other instances in both the film and novel which show he still possessed the human spirit.
Their race to the kiosk, play in the basement and Eli's concern for Hakan (even if misplaced), show Eli as being very much human.
JAL gave us the hollow-woman and the Lord and his friends to show us the antithesis to being human. And I wouldn't put Eli in their category, would you?

Unfortunately there are many humans like them. Eli was the exception.

[Ash]

Before this discussion leads inevitably into politics/religion , I have to agree that there are indeed many around today.
Let's just agree that certainty (the acceptance of a fact without doubt) often leads us away from our humanity.
Eli's self-doubt and moral confusion places him firmly in the human mold. That's why we love him so.
It's ironic that the things we so often associate with human weakness, are actually our real strengths.
"Men become civilized, not in proportion to their willingness to believe, but in proportion to their readiness to doubt." H.L. Mencken

[DarkGuyver]

I don't think Eli has lost touch with his/her human side, I think that his/her biology may have changed when s/he was turned into a vampire.

[gattoparde59]

Eli has lost her humanity and is trying to recover it with Oskar. Oskar gently causes Eli to confront her own lack of humanity. Why no coat? Why no birthday? Why do you need an invitation etc. Eli's anguish after killing Jocke is part of that development in Eli. (at least that is how I see it ) Eli does the same for Oskar, becoming a kind of catalyst that forces Oskar to confront his own incipient violence and cruelty, or inversely getting Oskar to acknowledge that the bullies are robbing him of his own sense of humanity by transforming him into "piggy."

These are my earliest impressions of the film, and since then I have tried to articulate them. The various members of this forum have really done that for me.

[a_contemplative_life]

Eli has lost her humanity and is trying to recover it with Oskar. Oskar gently causes Eli to confront her own lack of humanity. Why no coat? Why no birthday? Why do you need an invitation etc. Eli's anguish after killing Jocke is part of that development in Eli. (at least that is how I see it ) Eli does the same for Oskar, becoming a kind of catalyst that forces Oskar to confront his own incipient violence and cruelty, or inversely getting Oskar to acknowledge that the bullies are robbing him of his own sense of humanity by transforming him into "piggy."

These are my earliest impressions of the film, and since then I have tried to articulate them. The various members of this forum have really done that for me.

I think that in an important sense, they rescue each other. It's an important aspect of how they are bound to each other in love.