Oooh, a foreign film. Aren’t I sophisticated!

Thomas Alfredson’s Låt den rätte komma in (Let The Right One In)
I have to preface the following with an admission as to why I initially listed this movie. Its title is a reference to a Morrissey b-side and Morrissey is my sun and my moon as far as musicians go. But, this is not as superficial as it seems. Just as we like to feel connected to musicians, knowing an author listens to and is moved by the same music as we are is a proper excuse for giving his or her work a chance.
That being said, this movie posses a quality that I find very important and is often ignored. The screenwriting credit fo Let The Right One In goes to the author of the novel on which the movie is based. If a book is good enough to be made into a film, and the author of said novel has ANY interest in writing it’s conversion to screen, then I believe it’s always in the project’s best interest to let he or she give it a whirl. 
    My words cannot express how beautifully this film portrays human love and the idea of companionship. The main characters, a grade school outcast named Oskar and a centuries old vampire girl named Eli, are each on the cusp of their associations being tethered by ideas of sexuality. We get a glimpse into a brief time in the human experience whose story is rarely told. It’s a time when we are aware of romantic love, when we begin to realize that our closest connection may not always be with a parent or sibling, but we are still innocent to the weight and complication that comes along with sexual desire. Oskar is twelve and Eli has been twelve for a “long time”. Both characters are frozen in the above-described dawn of adolescents, when our feelings burn so bright.
    Besides the wonderful intricacies in the character associations and plot, the imagery in this film is moving to the core. Set and shot in suburban Sweden, the film intimately captures not only the burgeoning suburban movement of the early 1980s, but also the unique beauty and barrenness of the snowy Swedish landscape.
    If you have not yet seen this film, do. It encompasses all the subtly intriguing themes of other, less well-written vampire romances and adds a universe of artful creativity that has yet to be matched.