So dark the night (film)

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Movie
German title So dark the night
Original title Låt the advice comma in
Country of production Sweden
original language Swedish
Publishing year 2008
length 110 minutes
Age rating FSK 16
Rod
Director Tomas Alfredson
script John Ajvide Lindqvist
production Carl Molinder
John Nordling
music Johan Söderqvist
camera Hoyte van Hoytema
cut Tomas Alfredson
Daniel Jonsäter
occupation

So dark the night (original title: Låt den rätte komma in ) by Tomas Alfredson from 2008 is a horror drama about the friendship between an introverted boy and an androgynous vampire child in Sweden based on the novel of the same name by John Ajvide Lindqvist . The main characters Eli and Oskar were played by Lina Leandersson and Kåre Hedebrant .

action

In 1982, twelve-year-old Oskar lives with his mother in the wintery Blackeberg ( Stockholm ) in a housing estate. The blond, light-skinned boy is teased a lot by his schoolmates, and secretly he has murderous fantasies of revenge against his tormentors, which he never dares to carry out. One night an elderly man moves into the neighboring apartment with a young girl. After sunset, Oskar meets the black-haired, pale, androgynous child in the courtyard. It introduces itself to him as Eli and is dressed in a feminine, summery style. By his own account, Eli is "about twelve". The children become friends and the introverted Oskar falls in love with the strange person.

In the course of the story it turns out that Eli is a vampire and the elderly gentleman Oskar believes to be his father is actually his confidante, helper and protector. He has to get the necessary blood for Eli by committing murders and bleeding the victims to death. At the same time, Eli quarreled with her conscience because of her way of life and the numerous victims, because Oskar is also constantly threatening to wake her appetite. Oskar asks her if she wants to be with him, and Eli agrees after some hesitation. Little by little, Oskar Eli's trust and the two finally begin to communicate through the wall with Morse code every evening. When Eli finds out that Oskar is being harassed by his schoolmate Conny and his friends, she asks him to fight violently against the harassment of his classmates and assures him that she can protect him. While ice skating, Oskar finally knocks down Conny when he teases him again.

The hunting expeditions of Eli's helpers are not crowned with success in the new environment: on his first venture he kills a man, but is disturbed while collecting the blood and has to flee empty-handed. Out of hunger, Eli then attacks Jocke, the best friend of his neighbor Lacke, drinks his blood and kills him by breaking his neck to prevent him from turning into a vampire. His body is found frozen in the ice by his schoolmates the day Oskar finally defends himself.

The older man's next foray goes catastrophically wrong: When he is about to cut his victim's throat in the locker room of a gym, witnesses threaten to break open doors and windows. He's now making himself unrecognizable with a mason jar of acid to protect Eli. That same night Eli visits him in the hospital on the seventh floor. She redeems her previous protector from his suffering by drinking his blood. He then falls out of the window and dies.

Oskar later leads Eli into a cellar and insists on swearing blood brotherhood with her. At the sight of the blood, however, Eli can no longer contain herself and begins to lick it off the floor in front of Oskar's eyes before she fled for her life out of shame and fear. A little later, in her thirst for blood, she attacks Virginia, Lacke's friend, but is prevented by Lacke from killing her. Virginia comes to the hospital. When she realizes what happened to her, she commits suicide there in sunlight.

Despite this dramatic revelation about Eli's true nature, Oskar cannot let go of his love for her and decides to continue to stand by her. And this loyalty is soon sorely needed: Lacke finds out Eli's identity and looks for her in her apartment in order to punish and destroy her for the death of his loved one. Oskar distracts him, however, Eli wakes up and kills Lacke. Since Lackes disappearance inevitably leads to investigations, Eli has to move on and she and Oskar say goodbye. Shortly afterwards Conny and his older brother want to repay Oscar's resistance. They force Oskar under water in the school swimming pool, but then Eli appears, kills Oskar's tormentor and thus saves his life.

In the last scene of the film, Oskar, Eli's new partner, travels on the train with a large box in his luggage. From this Eli knocks the word "kiss" (Swedish: puss) in Morse code, which Oskar answers by knocking.

backgrounds

The film, whose name is derived from Morrissey's song Let the Right One Slip In , was shot in Blackeberg, Boden , Bromma (Stockholm) and Luleå , Sweden. Worldwide, Let the 11 million US dollars recorded.

In an interview with Tagesspiegel , the director Tomas Alfredson explained the motivations: “As a child, author Ajvide Lindqvist had a very hard time. I myself had similar problems at this age, so I was able to understand the plot well. [...] Children who are teased do not get as sad as one generally thinks. You're more likely to get angry. [...] Eli is a complex personality. It is cruel, but it is not vicious ”, regarding the omissions he explained:“ If you throw too much light on the vampire history, it would develop cracks. [...] On the other hand, if you keep silent about these things, the whole thing becomes more complex and therefore more interesting ”.

The bright and soft spoken Lina Leandersson was in the original Swedish version with lower-pitched voice dubbed .

Remake

In late 2008, it was announced that Cloverfield director Matt Reeves was planning a remake . Shortly afterwards, Chloë Moretz ( Kick-Ass ) and Kodi Smit-McPhee ( The Road ), two internationally known child stars, were hired for the leading roles. Reeves received harsh criticism prior to the release of this film, but film connoisseurs hailed the film as "one of the best horror films of all time." Above all, the soundtrack and the acting performance of the child actors were highly praised. The US remake was released under the name Let Me In on October 1, 2010 in the United States and Canada.

reception

  • “The Swedish director Tomas Alfredson [...] describes his coolly staged film as 'definitely Swedish'. [...] The almost meditative narrative gives the film a brittle realism [...] How effective and cruel it can be not to see violent details, you should see for yourself in the cinema. ”- Jörg Buttgereit , epd Film
  • "There are moments of shock, but they are not exactly spectacular at the moment, but are swallowed up again in Hoyte van Hoytema's pictures of the night, as soon as they have hinted at themselves." - Christoph Egger, NZZ
  • “[A] scary and sad story [...] Tomas Alfredson has found a surprisingly unsentimental style for his interpretation of the vampire theme. […] Coming of age , romance, horror, revenge, comedy and grief ”- Intro
  • “The film itself looks almost frozen […] Some animals also play a role, and in general a lot of excuse to laugh. [... Alfredson] sees his carefully arranged little world in a thoroughly humorous way, and yet takes the morbid torment of his young characters very seriously. ”- Manohla Dargis , The New York Times
  • “Being twelve is crap anyway. In addition, having divorced parents, being the chopping block for classmates and spending the winter in a Swedish satellite town - that's all you really need for a horror film. [...] Oskar is weird, Eli is weird, both are lonely - they have strong similarities. [...] A meditation on the dark in us and in life with others. ”- Peter Uehling, Berliner Zeitung
  • “The vampire topos has come under [...] suspicion of triviality. [...] A truly gruesome affair; The topos vampire, with its essential characteristics that unite life and death, which also include explicit sexuality and love, touches in a compressed form on the most elementary human worlds of experience, on the core driving forces of the human condition . [...] Since Philip Ridley's masterpiece Scream in the Silence , this is the first vampire film that correctly recognizes the meaning of the underlying topos ”- Werner Busch, editor - Das Filmmagazin
  • "Here we see the birth of two great actors." - Manifesto - Das Filmmagazin
  • "The film makes use of the characters of the coming-of-age film and the dramaturgy of the romance film, but above all the mythology of vampirism conveyed by popular culture." - Nadja Ben Khelifa, critic.de
  • " As dark as the night lives from the white-blonde, blue-eyed Kare Hedebrant and the unfathomably ageless Lina Leandersson, who walks barefoot through the snow with infinitely sad eyes like a gypsy child and manages to get her innocent first love just as much as the bloodthirsty huntress, who has feasted on its victims for centuries. ”- Michael Althen, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung

For the lexicon of international film it is "a fable for adults [...] about victim-perpetrator dynamics, anger and loneliness". In summary, the critics of the passionately cold, pale " love story among twelve-year-olds, one of whom has been twelve for a very long time", often speak of static and visual coldness , and see it as a functioning genre mixture , as calmly and realistically told , and with regard to the cruelty as reluctant. The prefabricated housing estate reminded individual authors of Kieślowski , the marginal figures of the "lacomian" Kaurismäki . The Film Journal International reviewed "a tomb from a film". The programmatically titled website Bloody Disgusting feared that, depending on their expectations, the calm speed might scare some people away. Andrew O'Hehir draws the attention to the fact that basically nothing is explained, not history, not the rules of the vampire film. In the usual clear words, it is the best film of 2008 for Harry Knowles from Ain't It Cool News .

In 2016, So sinster die Nacht ranked 94th in a BBC survey of the 100 most important films of the 21st century .

Awards

The film received a total of 60 film awards and 17 other nominations, including:

European Film Award 2009
nominated in the categories of Best European Film , Best Film Music and for the Audience Award
Gothenburg Film Festival 2008
"Nordic Film Prize" in the Best Film category for Tomas Alfredson and "Nordic Vision Award" in the Best Cinematography category for Hoyte van Hoytema
Guldbagge 2009
Best director, camera, screenplay and award for special services (best sound)
Sitges - Catalonian International Film Festival 2008
“Grand Prize of European Fantasy Film” in gold in the Best Film category for Tomas Alfredson
Tribeca Film Festival 2008
Award in the Best Narrative Feature category
BAFTA Award 2010
nominated for Best Non-English Language Film
British Fantasy Award 2010
Award for best film

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for So dark the night . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , March 2011 (PDF; test number: 115 426 V).
  2. ↑ a b So dark the night in the dictionary of international filmsTemplate: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used
  3. ↑ a b c Manohla Dargis : Let the Right One In (2008). In: The New York Times . October 24, 2008, accessed on November 7, 2008 (English): “as to look almost frozen. […] There are other interested animals in this story, and many more unsettling excuses to laugh. Yet while Mr. Alfredson takes a darkly amused attitude toward the little world he has fashioned with such care, he also takes the morbid unhappiness of his young characters seriously "
  4. ↑ Filming locations for So dark the night (2008). IMDb, accessed August 9, 2010 .
  5. ^ Let the Right One In (2008). Box Office Mojo, accessed August 9, 2010 .
  6. ↑ Don't throw too much light on the vampire story. In: Der Tagesspiegel . Der Tagesspiegel , December 23, 2008, accessed December 26, 2008 .
  7. ↑ Let Me In. Internet Movie Database , accessed June 10, 2015 .
  8. ↑ epd film 12.2008 p. 52 f.
  9. ↑ Christoph Egger: The little Oskar and the strange girl. In: NZZ . April 2, 2009, accessed April 2, 2009 .
  10. ↑ Martin Riemann: So dark the night. (No longer available online.) In: Intro. November 24, 2008, archived from the original on December 3, 2008 ; Retrieved November 26, 2008 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.intro.de
  11. ↑ Peter Uehling: Oskar's thirsty friend. In: Berliner Zeitung , December 24, 2008
  12. ↑ Werner Busch: Love and Undeath. In: Schnitt - Das Filmmagazin . 2008, accessed December 26, 2008 .
  13. ↑ Thorsten Hanisch: So dark the night (Sweden 2008). In: Manifest - Das Filmmagazin. December 22, 2008, accessed February 20, 2009 .
  14. ↑ Let The Right One In. (No longer available online.) In: Fantasy Filmfest . fantasyfilmfest.com, archived from the original on September 7, 2008 ; Retrieved November 8, 2008 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.fantasyfilmfest.com
  15. ↑ Nadja Ben Khelifa: So dark the night. In: critic.de. Retrieved October 30, 2012 .
  16. ↑ Michael Althen: The unfathomable poetry of the blood. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung . Retrieved October 30, 2012 .
  17. ^ A b c Bryant Frazer: Let the Right One In (Tomas Alfredson, 2008). (No longer available online.) In: Deep-Focus.com. October 30, 2008, archived from the original on November 17, 2008 ; accessed on November 8, 2008 (English): "a love story between 12-year-olds, one of whom has been 12 for a very long time […] cold […] with a passion" Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.deep-focus.com
  18. ↑ Günter H. Jekubzik: The Lakomiker Locarno honored Aki Kaurismäki with a retro in film service .
  19. ↑ a b "Characters like Aki Kaurismäki visiting" (Andrew O'Hehir) Andrew O'Hehir: The (undead) girl next door. In: Salon.com . October 27, 2008, accessed on November 8, 2008 (English): "comic-pathetic characters out of an Aki Kaurismäki film, pretty much"
  20. ↑ Chris Barsanti: Film Review: Let the Right One In. In: Film Journal International. October 22, 2008, accessed on November 8, 2008 (English): "vacuum-sealed tomb of a film"
  21. ↑ Michael Panduro: Let the Right One In (V). In: Bloody Disgusting. Retrieved on February 10, 2009 : "The slow pacing is sure to scare a lot of people of"
  22. ↑ Harry Knowles : Harry's Picks For The Top Ten Films of 2008 !!! In: Ain't It Cool News. December 28, 2008, accessed on February 20, 2009 (English): "holy shit"