I watched this Swedish vampire film with a sold out crowd in one of Toronto’s largest movie theatres, Bloor Cinema. The film has been building up a huge momentum, winning top prizes from Austin, Texas’ Fantastic Fest and New York’s Tribeca. After being disappointed that it wasn’t playing in TIFF08, I was relieved to see that it was going to be playing in late October in the closest theatre to my house.
The film is very well paced and set to a pensive and pretty, though a bit repetitive, piano score that gave the film an emotional boost that was pretty moving in a couple of different scenes. The two leads were very convincing, nothing spectacular, but better than good. The photography is a standout, if not the standout. A couple of times I felt that a scene reminded me of a Gregory Crewdson photograph; not as sci-fi, but the color and composition.
The film’s stance on vampires is pretty straightforward. No big reveals or surprises, everything is handled in a very humble, passive way. All of the standard vampire traits are present though: no sunlight, must be invited into a house, flying, blood drinking, etc. The female adoescent vampire asks her to-be boyfriend if he will still like her even if she were not a girl. His reply was a nonchalant “yes I suppose.” In this way, I felt that there was a gay tint to the film. For the boy, the only other option at this point, if this girl were to be something other than a girl, is for her to be a boy, and he doesn’t even care. Later on, when he still doesn’t know that she is a vampire, she crawls into bed with him, naked, and tells him that she is not a girl when he asks if the two of them can “go steady.” He responds that he would still like to go steady with her, even though, again, the only thing that she could be other than a girl is a boy.
The film feels a little bit long, but I was enjoying its length and wanted it to go on for longer. I found that I really enjoyed the two leads, and was reminded of childhood friends and crushes that I had when I was around 10-12 years old.