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Let The Right One In, a review by Achim

Original Title:Year: 2008
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Rating: 15
Length: 115 Min.
Video: Widescreen 2.35:1
Audio: Swedish: DTS 5.1, Swedish: Dolby Digital 5.0, Commentary: Dolby Digital Stereo
Subtitles: English

Stars:Plot:
Twelve year old Oskar is an outsider, struggling to fit in at school and left alone to fend for himself at home whilst his mother works nights. One evening he meets the mysterious Eli. As a sweet romance blossoms between them, Oskar learns to overcome his tormentors and discovers Eli's dark secret and the connections to the gruesome events occuring across town. Together they must help Eli be gone and live, or stay and die.

Brutal, bloody and tender, LET THE RIGHT ONE IN weaves friendship, rejection and loyalty into a disturbing and darkly atmospheric, yet poetic and unexpectedly tender tableau of adolescence.

Extras:
Audio Commentary
Deleted Scenes
Gallery

While technically a vampire film (while the overview doesn't say so, I think this is not a spoiler...) the main focus is on the love story not on the horror. Yes, it's a love story among 12-year olds, but as they are pre-teen everything is very innocent and pure, without any sexual implications (as pointed out by the director during the commentary). It's all about the two characters getting to know each other and finding that they should be together. Oskar is heavily bullied at school and has to learn to deal with that situation, the relationship with Eli giving him emotional support on his path.

The story unfolds very slowly and quietly, even the few scenes of violence (rather graphical, too) are not emphasized by overly dramatic music or sound design. The whole film has a rather sad atmosphere, emphasized by the lack of color, border-lining on depressing (as my friend out it). Many ideas and concepts are shown or implied in the film which makes it a rather dark affair, providing many discussion points. Of course all that serves the story, it's just not something you want to get into lightly.

Very enjoyable was that they kept all (most) the well known rules for vampires, such as the bite marks on the neck, sensitivity towards sunlight and having to be invited in.



I recommend listening to the director's and author's commentary. They talk rather slow (I assume partly because English is not their first language) and often simply explain what you see, but in other parts they discuss important ideas how things could be interpreted. For example they explain the meaning of the Rubik's cube early on in the film (it's a reference to Hellraiser) and give one possible explanation of the ending.

Note:
While the Blu-ray is labeled Region B it actually does play in Region A players, even the PS3 (which is PAL sensitive). The only feature I couldn't access was the Photo Gallery.

(From Achim's entirely random reviews on August 23rd, 2009)

Letter Never Sent, a review by Danae Cassandra

Letter Never Sent (Neotpravlennoye pismo)
Year of Release: 1959
Directed By: Mikhail Kalatozov
Starring: Innokenti Smoktunovsky, Tatiana Samoilova, Vasili Livanov, Yevgeni Urbansky
Genre: Drama

Overview:
The great Soviet director Mikhail Kalatozov, known for his virtuosic, emotionally gripping films, perhaps never made a more visually astonishing one than Letter Never SentLetter Never Sent is a fascinating piece of cinematic history and a universal adventure of the highest order.

My Thoughts:
This is a visually striking film.  The cinematography is really, truly beautiful.  Absolutely stunning.  Each shot, each movement, is gorgeously composed, and you could hang stills in galleries next to art photography and not know they were from a film.  The camera work is very definitely the star here.

That doesn't mean that's all there is to this film.  The actors all give solid performances.  There's a real empathy you develop for the characters.  The story is straightforward, yes, but it's well told.  In one view the film reads as propaganda: the characters are very patriotic, cooperative, willing to make sacrifices for the good of their group and their country.  They're hopeful of freeing Russia from dependence upon imported diamonds with a discovery of their own.  Yet, there's also a subtle criticism I read in the film.  These people give up everything for the state, they believe in it with all their hearts, but all it brings them is loss and death.  The voice on the radio tells them that they are eagerly awaited back home (for their discovery) and later that rescue has been sent out,  ... yet it never arrives.  

Excellent film, beautiful cinematography, recommended for film aficionados.  A typically bleak Russian ending makes this probably not a good choice for the more general viewer, though.

Bechdel Test: Fail  

Overall: 4/5

(From Within My (Mom's) Lifetime Marathon on September 19th, 2015)

Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete Second Season marathon, a review by Achim

9. ComplicationsMy comments:
After the fast paced episode 8 is=t was quite reasonable to have things pulled back a bit for episode 9, getting some more character and story development done. There is basically three threads running, one for Sarah (boring), one for Derek (intense) and one for Ellison (short jaw-dropping).

Sarah is having some sort of recurring nightmare involving Cromartie and three dots that even has her sleepwalking. I don't really understand what they were trying to do with this and it had me mostly bored. It was nice to have Dorian Harewood as Dr. Sherman back though.

Derek's story I found very exciting. The slow build up and twists and turns that bring us to the revelation at the end. Two really interesting things are achieved in this episode, one being the discussion about changing the future and the other how they basically got Derek's girlfriend Jesse off the hook "with a whip-pan" . The stuff under her bed shall not be forgotten though...

And then there is Ellison, who gives us a big jaw-dropping moment at the end.

(From Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles: The Complete Second Season marathon on February 7th, 2010)