Let The Right One In
Let The Right One In is a Swedish film set in the 1980’s. The plot reveals an awkward twelve-year-old boy named Oskar. Oskar is not like most kids his age; he has weird hobbies, such as keeping newspaper clippings of the murders happening just outside his small town. His barely-there parents are divorced so he alternates between their homes. When he is alone, Oskar often imagines killing his classmates who regularly bully him. Oskar meets Eli, a supposedly twelve-year-old girl who has just moved into the next-door apartment beside his with Hakan. Unbeknownst to him, Eli is a vampire and Hakan is her “helper”. Though Eli at first mentions to Oskar they cannot be friends, she ends up solving the Rubik cube that he offered her and meets him again on the jungle gym.
Amidst this “blooming” young love, the question of whether Eli was actually grooming Oskar to be the “new Hakan” is really a paradox for the audiences, in which Eli’s actions can either be interpreted as manipulative or just helping a friend in need. The string of murders in the beginning of the film is to no surprise Hakan’s doing. Hakan kills people – usually young men – for Eli to feed. His love towards Eli also allows audience to speculate if he was a pedophile. However, Eli mentions to Oskar she has been “12 for a while”, implying her immortality and thus making her much older than Hakan and Oskar, paradoxically making her the pedophile.
Eli’s gender remains unclear throughout the film. Eli tells Oskar that “I’m not a girl” in which he ignores. But a glimpse of Eli’s mutilated genitalia implies that she was once in fact a boy and someone had castrated him. If so, it would mean that Oskar is gay and perhaps sublimating his sexuality for violence....
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...e refuses to accept the money that Eli steals from the people she kills.
Like the Rubik cube, it signals a sub-level of thinking in the film. It took me two viewings to start putting the pieces together. On the surface it appears to be two twelve-year-olds forming a genuine friendship. But very subtly, the film brings about matters of homosexuality, pedophilia and necrophilia, all of which are taboos and harshly rejected by society. Though considered a romantic horror movie film, I loved how it was really more “dark” than scary. The film appears simple, but imploring a “less is more” concept. Its ambiguity (which I’m fairly frustrated with) allows for many interpretations. On the side note, I really enjoyed the film’s soundtrack by Johan Söderqvist. There were no jump scares exaggerated with loud music but rather this same eerie tune playing throughout the film.
Samuels starts out explaining the background of Elie, a child who has a great love for religion. Then, Nazis come and occupy his native town of Sighet. Although held captured and clueless to where they were going, the Jews were indeed optimistic. They had no reason not to be, the Nazis were treating them as they were of importance. However, the optimism was to come to a halt. After arresting the Jewish leader, the Jews were sent to ghettos, then into camps. It wasn't until they reached Auschwitz where Elie for the first time smelt burning flesh. Then the eight words that Elie couldn't forget, "Men to the left! Women to the right!" He was then left with his father, who for the whole trip he would depend on to survive. It was this, in which made him lose his religiousness. In the months to come Elie and his father lived like animals. Tragically, in the end his father past away, and to amazement Elie had not wept. Samuels did an overall remarkable job on this review; however, there were still some parts that could have been improved.
The audience for this text is for a wide range a people and family. This movie is a great family movie as it shows determination and the will to move beyond the past. Especially for those that perceive they don’t belong or are passively rejected. The director has used a inspiring film to persuade humans to move beyond there past. To forgive and forget.
A Dutch girl named Hanneke Bakker is working as a black market delivery girl during World War II, as a small rebellion against the Nazis for killing her boyfriend, Bas. While delivering sausages to Mrs. Janssen, Hanneke was asked to find a Jewish schoolgirl, named Mirjam Roodvelt, who she was hiding in her secret room behind the pantry from the Nazis. Although she disapproves of the idea, she knows that this would be something Bas would want her to do. Hanneke decided to trespass Mirjam’s school but was caught by a secretary named Judith and had to make up a lie about trying to find pictures of Bas. A few days later, Hanneke finds Ollie, Bas’ older brother, waiting in her living room to talk to her about why she was at the Jewish School. After
In Elie Wiesel’s Night, it is proven that hard times can lead to growth in relationships; Elie’s relationship with his father became the only reason life was worth continuing. Father-son relationships are something that most fathers want, but probably do not think about them, they are something that just happens. Eliezer and his father’s relationship was not the best, but throughout the book they are faced with death and it forces their dependency to grow. This growth is shown clearly through the novel and it is the last thing Eliezer wants to lose.
Sarah Nilsen, in her journal article “‘Be Sure You’re Right, Then Go Ahead’: The Davy Crockett Gun Craze”, considered the way guns were promoted to the youth by television shows. The show that she focuses her attention on is Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett series. As the industry for western films began to slowly grow, the rate of juvenile delinquency became an issue that most parents wanted fixed. Parents began to question were this violent behavior came from. They started realizing their kid’s interest in toys such as toy pistols. This raised question whether the media was silently making guns an acceptable form of everyday life. This is where Nilsen began her research. Her purpose in the article was to pick apart the shows Disney created,
Fear, hunger, and sadness, that was what the Jews had to experience. Especially a fifteen-year boy, it wasn’t easy to survive at that time. Everything can change in a day, first you have everything, and then nothing. The fifteen-year kid was Eliezer, someone that has to survive with his father in a concentration camp without any experience. It’s hard you survive, especially when you don’t have a good relationship with your dad, but you have to be with him and survive with him. They don’t have a good relationship, but as I sad, everything can change. After problems, conflicts and many things, Elie shows how the son bonds change through the book. Elie’s relationship with his dad was very different, their relationship changed because Concentration
Elie goes to Auschwitz at an innocent, young stage in his life. Due to his experiences at this concentration camp, he loses his faith, his bond with his father, and his innocence. Situations as horrendous as the Holocaust will drastically change people, no matter what they were like before the event, and this is evident with Elie's enormous change throughout the memoir Night.
Spike Lee’s Do The Right Thing observes inner city race relations in a Brooklyn neighborhood. The entire film takes place over the course of one day, as it also happens to be the hottest day of the year; not only is the weather hot, but racial tension is heated as well. The film follows a variety of characters representing different races, genders, and social classes. The movie centers upon the struggles and conflicts of race in the city as it focuses in on members of the community and whom they choose to align with.
Shelton “Spike” Lee is an auteur known for his narrative style and his strong presence within the black community. His movies often portray an issue all too common for black and brown communities. His hit Do The Right Thing (1989) brought to light the casual racism within a community and the still controversial issue of police brutality. This was what audiences assumed they would receive with Chi-raq (2015). Chi-raq also focused on the importance of a strong sense of community and the lack of love within one but it did so by turning a mirror in the face of the black and brown men in gangs. Do The Right Thing focused on the interconnection of a community; Chi-raq focused on what we allow to divide us. Along with this theme of community, the movies held stark differences in narrative style, tone, and editing.
Jane Eyre is the story of a journey to be loved. Jane seeks not just for romantic love but for being valued. Throughout the course of the book, Jane must learn how to gain love without sacrificing herself in the process. Only after proving her self-sufficiency to herself can she marry Rochester and not be asymmetrically dependent upon him as her “master.” The marriage can be one between equals. As Jane says: “I am my husband’s life as fully as he is mine. . . . To be together is for us to be at once as free as in solitude, as gay as in company.
The main characters in the film do an amazing job at adding depth and making the movie about more than just four kids going out one weekend to find the body of a boy that got hit by a train. The film does this by dissecting the uncertainties and fears of what it was like to be a twelve year old once more. It shines light upon the problems that often are overlooked in kids and creates an engaging plot throughout the
It is unfortunate that intolerance continues to exist in our nation (or anywhere else for that matter). Racism, one of the largest and most prevalent forms of intolerance, commonly destroys relationships and can eventually lead to violence. The existence of such hateful ideologies is so prevalent in our society that popular culture is constantly trying to challenge the ignorant basis of racial conflict. Spike Lee’s film, Do the Right Thing, connects with this concept of racial conflict that is so foreign to my past. Through the application of my social and political views, I will demonstrate how the film is difficult for myself to relate to and, in my opinion, conveys a misleading message.
Ha Jin is a very talented writer. He uses first person narrative, setting, and personal appeal to show his readers that cruelty and judgment against homosexuals is not needed in today’s society. He uses these three things to show that the criticism in this book is taken to an extreme. These aspects along with many others create a story that readers are not only interested in, but can relate to as well.
...the predominant theme of disorientation and lack of understanding throughout the film. The audience is never clear of if the scene happening is authentic or if there is a false reality.
“Education shall aim at developing the child’s personality, talents and mental and physical abilities to the fullest extent. Education shall prepare the child for an active adult life in a free society and foster respect for the child’s parents, his or her own cultural identity, language, and values, and for the cultural background and values of others.” (The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child)