My first Swedish film

I watched my first Swedish film this weekend - Let the Right One In. It was beautiful. Incredible. The examination and development of the relationship between the film's two protagonists, Oskar and Eli, two "children", set within a dark, cold, lifeless suburb of Stockholm, is so tender and moving, yet so tortuous, that you don't know how to feel about it. Eli overwhelms you with her loneliness; Oskar is alone too, but more fortunate than Eli. Not only is this relationship so beautifully developed, but the film is also aesthetically one of the most amazing I have ever watched. It's like every shot is one caught perfectly on a photographer's frame. Whether it's the bleakness of the estate-like housing development that Oskar and Eli share, or Eli sitting in her cold, empty room, hunched and staring at the wall common to her and Oskar's room. The film is not about vampires. In fact, the whole vampire theme I think is merely there to emphasize the emptiness and melancholy of the film's two protagonists. Also to emphasise the coldness, the bleakness of the suburb where they live. This film is pure art - and at its very, very best.