Let the Right One In: Interview & Clips
Written by Nikki Baughan Thursday, 09 April 2009 13:35
Interview
Opening tomorrow, Friday April 10th, is Let the Right One In, the Swedish thriller that’s been silently taking the movie world by storm. Telling the story of Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) young, bullied boy who falls in love with Eli (Lina Leadersson), a young girl who turns out to be a vampire, the film has been winning awards at film festivals across the globe and deserves to find equal audience acclaim on its theatrical release.
On the eve of its UK cinematic debut, we speak with the film’s director Thomas Alfredson, and bring you some clips from the movie. Adapted from John Ajvide Linqvist’s best-selling Swedish novel – Linqvist also wrote the film’s screenplay – Let the Right One In looks set to bring Alfredson to international focus, so we took our chance to speak with him before the hoards descend…
Let the Right One In has been winning praise for the way in which it deals with such a dark subject through the eyes of a child. Are you a fan of the genre?
Thomas Alfredson No! This is the first time I’ve made a film in this kind of genre, and to be honest I’ve never been so interested in things that are very fantastic or unreal. But the book had an interesting mixture between the social-realistic style and the vampire stuff. I really had a lot to learn!
How did you come across the book in the first place, and what attracted you to it?
TA It was a friend who gave it to me, and I read it in 48 hours. It was a best-seller when it came out, and it was a sensation here in Sweden. 
I had some rough times when I was a kid, when I was Oskar’s age, so I had some strong feelings when I read it. It’s very interesting when you’re at that age, if you’re bullied you really don’t know where to go with all your feelings. A lot of anger grows inside you. So I suppose, if you like, this vampire girl that Oskar meets could be the embodiment of his anger. That was my way into the story.
How involved was John Ajvide Linqvist in making the film?
TA He was very brave! He wanted to do the screenplay himself, and the book is something like 460 pages. So to turn that into 110 minutes of film is quite [difficult], but it turned out to be a very good decision.
He was, in a good way, a very silent writer. I love screenplays that don’t have too much explanatory text and dialogue. So the dialogue in this story is very quiet and it’s also very poetic – it doesn’t push a lot of information in your face. The film really works even if you don’t listen to the dialogue. John’s a very visual write, so that was the kind of style I wanted to bring to it.
Play Clip
The story rests squarely on the shoulders of young stars Kade Hedebrant and Lina Leadersson who play Oskar and Eli. How did you cast the children?
TA It was almost impossible. They get old in six months, so you can’t judge by looking at their headshots. We had to hold open castings. We spent a year trying to find them and we went all over Sweden to look for those two. The most complicated thing, I thought, was that it wasn't just about finding the right Oskar and the right Eli. Because I consider them to be the same character – they're two sides of the same character – so they had to be their own mirrors, not just in terms of looks but also personality. It was really tough to make that choice.
How much did you tell them about the film; was it important they understand exactly what it’s about?
TA I told them what this film was about, briefly. But you can't give children the responsibility of making a complete portrait, from A to Z. It's too much to carry. I didn't want them to read the script because I thought it would give them a lot of mental images that would be impossible to get rid of, especially if they were wrong. So I told them the story, very briefly, and then they got the script each day from me, reading it out loud. So they learned by ear, not by eye.
How do you see the vampirism in this movie? Is it a metaphor?
TA In this story, it's a symbol for Oskar's anger. Because, most often, bullied children are portrayed as very sad people, but I think they're very angry, and this anger can't come out. I would think that bullied children have the potential to be really dangerous; those are the ones that shoot people in school later on, and do crazy things with their anger.
I also think the vampire represents the animal part of ourselves, because we do have certain instincts and we very rarely use them. The few instincts that we still have to obey are eating, sleeping and sex, really. Otherwise we're like walking heads. The vampire myth has also been a symbol for the sexual act, with the beast conquering the beauty, but I didn't want it to be sexualised in our story. That's also the beauty of it: the innocence of this story. It's romantic in a non-sexual way.
Play Clip
Why do you think Sweden lends itself so well to this kind of story?
TA Well, we obviously have a lot of darkness here in the winter. It's noon now and it'll be getting dark in two hours or something. It's really depressing; December and January are really heavy. No wonder people drink!
Play Trailer Medium Res
Play Trailer High Res
