DVD OF THE WEEK

LET THE RIGHT ONE IN *****
Dir: Tomas Alfredson
Starring: Kare Hederbrant Lina Leandersson, Per Ragnar

I've been following the reviews as this small Swedish film has slowly made its way around the world to New Zealand, via film festivals and limited cinema runs, and have yet to see one that doesn't give it a five star rating. And with good reason.
Let The Right One In is an extraordinarily atmospheric and intelligent film. It centres round young Oskar, strange-looking and continually bullied at school, living with his disconnected solo mother. One night someone new moves into his apartment block and he meets a strange young girl, Eli, who smells funny, has cold skin and is 'twelve… more or less”.
And that's the set-up. She is, in the most understated way, a vampire.
But this is very different from any vampire film you have ever seen. Unlike the feeble Twilight it doesn't reduce the metaphor of vampirism to just another tired expression of young lust. This places both protagonists in a very real world – she has a 'minder” who dutifully, if somewhat inefficiently, kills for her. He is a haunted and unhappy man. Neighbours are also vividly real, and understandably concerned by deaths in the area.
In fact, if there is a metaphor behind the vampire here it is to symbolise violence. When Eli hears of Oskar being bullied she tells him he has to fight back. She has already seen him fantasise about punishing the bullies and the eventual climax is both deeply chilling and deftly handled.
Add in beautiful cinematography of snow-bound Stockholm and you have a film that is destined to become a classic. Don't be put off by subtitles or the initially slow pace – this is remarkable stuff.

And then there's the other vampire film, the one beloved of early teenage girls and raking in box office millions worldwide. It is, of course, Twilight (**), and is as depressingly vacuous as its target market would suggest. The story has teen Bella moving to a new town and school to live with her father. There she falls for the very pale Edward, a vampire who has sworn off eating people and gets by on animal blood. They get romantically involved at tedious length while Ed tries to restrain his natural tendency to bite her neck. On the bright side, the cinematography is ace. Beyond that just remember this is not a horror film, it's a love story for teenage girls.

Australia (****) got a bit of a mauling at the box office which seems a shame since it is a most enjoyable tale of early Australia, helped immeasurably by Baz Lurman's theatrical style of direction which lifts the veil of period seriousness and helps zip through the nearly three hour running time. The story is a three hander really, with Nicole Kidman's recently arrived English cattle station owner, Hugh Jackman's rugged true Aussie drover, and a half-aborigine, half-European kid. The combination is, of course, dead symbolic. Central focus is the big drove, with an evil rival trying to foil their plans to get a helluva lot of stock to wartime Darwin, just as the Japanese are about to bomb it. Aside from a somewhat dragged-out ending this is damn fine stuff, good clean fun for all the family.

Also from Australia, but on a very limited budget is comedy The Garth Method (**) wherein the eponymous out of work actor resorts to kidnapping people to be in his movie. Gregory Pakis stars and directs and gets kudos for effort, and there are some funny moments, but this is very avoidable stuff unless you are interested in different approaches to no-budget filmmaking.

And talking of no budget filmmaking… Five Across The Eyes (*) obviously had enough money for two cars and one camera. Five girls in a van are terrorised by someone in another vehicle. Astonishingly, the entire film is shot on what looks like a handicam from inside the girls' car. Features lots of shaky camera and screaming.