Last week, I read a beautiful romantic drama about the relationship between a young boy and a girl, one of whom is a vampire.
The story is set in the working class neighbourhood of Stockholm, in a run down housing development full of violent children (sadistic almost) and alcoholics with good intentions.
The book begins with Oskar, a disturbed, bullied child with no friends to speak of, who manages to make a connection with Eli – a vampire. The predictable does not happen.
I found myself embracing Eli, a victim of unfortunate circumstances, yet forced to live them out; one night at a time. The other characters in the book are fascinating and equally disturbing.
I was so fascinated by the book that I wanted to see whether the movie did justice to it! I was not disappointed.
The movie is not about pale, sparkly Glampires. It is everything Twilight wanted to be, achingly romantic, emotionally involving and expectedly terrifying.
The screenplay for the movie was done by Lindqvist himself and retains the character of the book. The sound and the music score throughout the movie is “nightmarishly great”. There are quite a few moments in the movie which linger on, long after the movie is over.
My favourite is, a key passage in the novel details what happens when Eli enters a room uninvited, an action that traditional vampire lore usually prohibits. The movie shows Eli slowly beginning to bleed from her eyes, ears. As Peter Bradshaw of ‘The Guardian’ described it as a “haemophilia of rejection”.
Watch the Swedish original with subtitles and not the American movie. The film has a 98% "Certified fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
Beg, Borrow or Steal? - Steal.
