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.
Eliezer was a strict Jew who practiced religion and observed all Jewish holidays. As a child he was very devoted and focused all his energy to study Judaism. He grew up loving God with the belief that God is more powerful than anything else in this universe. He believed that with all the power God has, he is capable to put an end to all this awful suffering. Living and witnessing all this misery and have God not do anything about it makes him questions God.
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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.
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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,
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.
Schindler’s List begins with the early life of Oskar Schindler. The novel describes his early family life in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and his adolescence in the newly created state of Czechoslovakia. It tells of his relationship with his father, and how his father left his mother. His mother is also described in great detail. Like many Germans in the south, she was a devout Catholic. She is described as being very troubled that her son would take after her estranged husband with his negligence of Catholicism. Oskar never forgave Hans, his father, for his abandonment of his mother , which is ironic considering that Oskar would do the same with his wife Emilie. In fact Hans and Oskar Schindler’s lives would become so much in parallel that the novel describes their relationship as “that of brothers separated by the accident of paternity.'; Oskar’s relationship with Emilie is also described in detail as is their marriage. The heart of the novel begins in October 1939 when Oskar Schindler comes to the Polish city of Cracow. It has been six weeks since the German’s took the city, and Schindler sees great opportunity as any entrepreneur would. For Schindler, Cracow represents a place of unlimited possibilities because of the current economic disorder and cheap labor. Upon his arrival in Cracow he meets Itzak Stern, a Jewish bookkeeper. Schindler is very impressed with Stern because of his business prowess and his connections in the business community. Soon Schindler and Stern are on t...
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“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)