Oskar's bullies

[PeteMork]

My bullies were all middle or upper class kids. I don't doubt abuse tends to engender more abuse, but I'm also sure that at least a substantial proportion of bullies simply are used to getting their way, are bored, etc.

QFT. I ran into both types in my youth.

[intrige]

That alpha male theory is very interesting. I haven't thoight of it before, but now that Wolfchild brought it up, it makes percekt sense.

There was also some talking about campaition between Let the right one in bullies and (their own bullies). Where there were told that they mostly were older and stronger kids, and probebly had some kind of trobule elsewhere, and let it out on their "wiktims". As the theory of Oskar and his bullies. My bullies was all same age, boys and girls. uncertain and the in the quest for power. Many of then was nor bigger or stronger then me. The boys was taller, but that is normal , When measuring boys and girls side by side, the boys are usually tallest. As for Oskars bullies, they weren't taller and stronger then him. They were just to many for him, three against one, you get the picture.

I also saw that Conny didn't want to do everything him self, decided when enough was enough, and so on. And certainly a big brother as a role model. When Oskar is about to strike back on the ice, Conny doesn't like to do it him self when the two others are cowards. But then we have the deleted scene, which is stright from the book. The toilet scene, where Conny him self makes Oskar squeel like a pig. And that other kid, laughing on his side. (For me is the WORST scene in the whole movie) Afther Conny lets go of Oskar, he says to his friend: för ett svin. (What a swine) while the two of then walks out of the toom. Just to let Oskar hear the last time "for now" what a gross pig he is. It hurt so much to se the awfule lines and actions from the book come to life so beliveable. And so good from all parts, Poor Oskar.

That kid that whips the whip at first, in the eavning by their school. Is not to happy to do that. He cryes and afther Martin takes over for him, he stand behind Oskar, crying to him self. This was something I had to do, but not wanted to. Martin seems to push himself to do this. Not that Conny even pushed him, but that Martin felt he had to do something anyway. But crossed the line. Conny shows it is still innocent and childlike side of him and his friends when he says: What will his mother say now? Or something similar. And them all runs away while the crying kid( Damn it, cant remember his name. ) Says: Vad fan? Vänta!, it means: What the fuck? Wait. I cant remeber of that line was on the english Sub or not. Til me if it is:)

The bully actros did a realy good jub, with out them, there would not be a beliveable sympathy for Oskar. This move have thought of everything.

[DMt.]

Yes. I thought the one who played Jimmy was very brave to play such a horrible psycho thug, he didn't get long to do it in either, [three short scenes?] and he is well scary, and fugly too.

Lombo, I do take your point, and I too have met both sorts. They're all sick, though, aren't they?...just in different ways.

Neglect, for example, is also a form of abuse, and so is putting your career ahead of your child, in my book; and both are very prevalent in middle-class families, I gather.

[Lacenaire]

Wel, perhaps just to be a little contrarian, I would say the character of Jimmy, although very well acted,dramatically is a weakness in TA's film. We never get any insight into what motivates him at all, in fact I don't think we can even make a good guess. It's certainly not the desire to avenge his little brother - as you can tell in the pool scene where Conny shows that he never intended things to go as far (or even imagined that they would). Jimmy's determination has certainly nothing to do with wishing to be an "alpha male" or whatever, all the others are just kids for him and he has nothing to prove to them. He isn't really "having fun" a la Alex of Clockwork Orange. It's something else and the book does give some idea of what it is, but in the film this is one of a number of mysteries. Of course the biggest enigma is Eli herself - but that I see as a great strength of the film and, in my opinion, if the film told us more about Eli it would only be the poorer for it. But with Jimmy, I feel the opposite is the case. To me, in the pool scene Jimmy almost seems to be driven by some external violent force not unlike the one that lives inside Eli, but there is explanation of reason for it and we can't even tell if the author/director is trying to tell us something or whether it was only a device to somehow justify what follows.

[TΛPETRVE]

Actually, to me the pool scene almost felt like Jimmy was afraid of something, as if he had something to prove and feared nothing more than failure.

[abner_mohl]

It is interesting the way all of the other kids clear out of the pool when they see Jimmy, so obviously he already has a bad reputation. Maybe he is just the local thug, but you are right that TA could have given something about Jimmy's background, even a quick reference to whatever activities he might be involved in, like a gang or something.

[sauvin]

Wel, perhaps just to be a little contrarian, I would say the character of Jimmy, although very well acted,dramatically is a weakness in TA's film. We never get any insight into what motivates him at all, in fact I don't think we can even make a good guess. It's certainly not the desire to avenge his little brother - as you can tell in the pool scene where Conny shows that he never intended things to go as far (or even imagined that they would). Jimmy's determination has certainly nothing to do with wishing to be an "alpha male" or whatever, all the others are just kids for him and he has nothing to prove to them. He isn't really "having fun" a la Alex of Clockwork Orange. It's something else and the book does give some idea of what it is, but in the film this is one of a number of mysteries. Of course the biggest enigma is Eli herself - but that I see as a great strength of the film and, in my opinion, if the film told us more about Eli it would only be the poorer for it. But with Jimmy, I feel the opposite is the case. To me, in the pool scene Jimmy almost seems to be driven by some external violent force not unlike the one that lives inside Eli, but there is explanation of reason for it and we can't even tell if the author/director is trying to tell us something or whether it was only a device to somehow justify what follows.

This is part of my problem with the whole Seagal/Van Damme genre of movie: they spend a quite a bit of time building up indignation and anger in order to justify horrific retribution. It's really the same story told over and over and over. We do sometimes see some character development in the "protagonists", and almost never for the antagonists. They're just slugfests; they not only don't say anything new, they rarely say anything at all.

I don't think anybody who's ever been bullied by a small band of boys or girls ever really has any idea where the violence comes from. It's just there, and it's up to us to either avoid it when we can, or endure it when we can't. What's shown in LTROI and much more realistically in LMI is in this sense very real. Here, art isn't imitating life, it's merely reporting it.

[DMt.]

Yes, Lacenaire, I agree he is a little under-represented [as is Conny come to think of it], presumably from time constraints; but we gather from the brotherly roughing-up sequence where he asks for Conny's keys that there is at least some sort of [however distorted] affection between them; and surely we are all familiar enough with the 'rules' of bullying to fill in the gaps about his motivation for his murderous actions? I think this is the gamble JAL/TA took here, and for me at least they got away with it.

That said, how I would love to see a longer edit, with some of these elisions filled in a little...

[DMt.]

Actually, to me the pool scene almost felt like Jimmy was afraid of something, as if he had something to prove and feared nothing more than failure.

Yes. He's afraid of what he's doing, but even more afraid of the social-image cost to his tough-guy rep of letting Oskar get away with making HIS kid bro partially deaf...?

In the book he's just smoked a big spliff of super-mean skunk or something, too, so he's [even more] off his head.

[LastDarkness]

Oskar just had some bad anexity. All he needed was some zanex and he would have been fine....of course he would have a drug problem then but you would be surprised how many problems drugs can get rid of to narrow down to just one, drugs.