Eli's posessions

[a_contemplative_life]

This seemed like an opportune time to bump this topic.

from ACL in Goof & Gaffs thread.

I don't think the bunny on the table is made of wax. It looks like a tin bunny toy with fur stuck on the outside (note the legs).
And perhaps Eli hadn't traveled around the world, but the people she met had.
Which makes me wonder about the type of people who took her in. The rural community were probably to busy farming and too poor to want an unproductive house guest around. So IMO they were probably educated and/or wealthy people who befriended Eli, out of kindness or "....for very different reasons."
Which might explain the origin of the egg - a gift rather than stolen.
In Eli's box on the train, what do you think she took with her?
Or was it just her, and they had plans to return and pick up her stuff later?

I don't think they would have planned to return. Being kids, they probably crammed as much stuff as Eli wanted to take in the box - like her money, the egg, her bunny and whatever else on the table she wanted to take, probably some games.

[Ash]

Stefan : "What have you got in there, if you don't mind my asking? "
Oskar : "A little bit of everything."

You're probably right ACL.

Edit - In the novel Oskar has several boxes as well as the trunk. So they probably took all of Eli's stuff, and some of Oskar's too.

[metoo]

Edit - In the novel Oskar has several boxes as well as the trunk. So they probably took all of Eli's stuff, and some of Oskar's too.

Oskar had the trunk and two cardboard boxes. I think the boxes were the two Oskar saved from Eli's apartment, the one with toys and the one with the money. Eli had a third box for his clothes, but that one was left in Eli's apartment.

Later, Oskar put the two boxes in the basement storage room, so Oskar and Eli must have visited the basement of his house before continuing, to pick up Eli's belongings. However, I don't think Oskar managed to bring any of his own stuff. To do so, he would have needed to go by his apartment, where his mum would have been waiting for him.

[Ash]

Thanks for explaining that metoo. Though I doubt Eli would like you calling his puzzles and things "toys".
I wonder how you would classify the stuff Eli had? Most would appear to be keepsakes, the puzzles have a purpose/function, the rings however might point to another side of Eli's character - trophies?
It's hard to explain the collection of rings he kept. Not really a gift someone would give another, and too big for Eli to use for himself.
I guess they might be valuable like the egg or money he had, and Eli kept them for their monetary worth, in case the hard cash ran out.
I'd rather not think he stole them from his victims as trophies, so I'll go for the latter.

[Marlow]

The white bunny appears to be a spring wind-up type of toy; i.e., you turn a key and the mechanism makes it hop. It looks to be metal covered with fur, probably artificial, but ... . These mechanisms go back over one hundred years in children's toys, but this one is so clean it looks to be from the 1970's. I remember as a kid having a rabbit's foot key chain, yes a real rabbit's foot. Sensitivities have changed.

I would choose the rings as part of the "keepsakes" as well as the "valued-commodity" interpretations. I do think they have come from Eli's victims, however.

I remember trolls having a great deal of popularity in the mid to late 1960's in the US. Smurfs came a decade or so later in the US, 1981 for the cartoons on Saturday mornings, I looked it up, about the time frame of Oskar's childhood. Maybe they made their way to Sweden a bit earlier.

As to Oskar's possessions, we see his cars with his Smurfs near the end of the film, where he poignantly closes their doors. The "door theme" of LTROI! Wolfchild when are you going to write this up? I might start this one myself, although this would be a very long thread! Oskar's cars are Chevrolet Corvettes and Ford Mustangs, by the way.

[a_contemplative_life]

I agree that the rings are probably hot. Eli never answers Oskar's question about where they came from.

[drakkar]

Seems logical, but my problem with this approach is that I cannot find support for it in the film and book, rather the contrary. we never see Eli steal anything in the film, and in the book he passes the opportunity at the old lady, where it would be plenty of valuables he could steal - the possibility simply doesn't seem to occur to him. It also seemed to come out of the blue to him when Oskar accused him of stealing.

[PeteMork]

Seems logical, but my problem with this approach is that I cannot find support for it in the film and book, rather the contrary. we never see Eli steal anything in the film, and in the book he passes the opportunity at the old lady, where it would be plenty of valuables he could steal - the possibility simply doesn't seem to occur to him. It also seemed to come out of the blue to him when Oskar accused him of stealing.

I've had the same difficulty with this idea. As logical an assumption as it may be, it seems to me to be entirely out of character for Eli.

[metoo]

I believe movie Eli had stolen stuff from his victims. The rings are there to give that impression, stuff that is easy to take off a victim, and the director's comments suggests as much about the money.

Novel Eli, on the other hand, denies having stolen his money. The sheer amount of money suggests he told the truth - people don't carry sufficient amounts of money around to add up to that. One may argue that Eli might have collected it during a long time, but I don't believe so. He spent his money too freely, and obviously allowed Håkan to take a fortune for his own purposes. Eli wouldn't have been able to save up.
Additionally, the shape of Swedish bills has changed over time, but nothing is told of Oskar finding any old bills in Eli's box. My conclusion is that Eli must have obtained all of it rather recently (in the 70s), and this makes the source of it being his victims even more unlikely.

[a_contemplative_life]

Seems logical, but my problem with this approach is that I cannot find support for it in the film and book, rather the contrary. we never see Eli steal anything in the film, and in the book he passes the opportunity at the old lady, where it would be plenty of valuables he could steal - the possibility simply doesn't seem to occur to him. It also seemed to come out of the blue to him when Oskar accused him of stealing.

Well...except blood. Eli does steal that. And if Eli has made the moral decision that it is better for others to die so she can live, then taking a few rings seems a small moral issue, easily justifiable as necessary, given her extreme circumstances.