Monster or Child--A Narrative Weakness in LTROI

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dongregg
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Re: Monster or Child--A Narrative Weakness in LTROI

Post by dongregg » Mon Feb 03, 2014 4:50 am

sauvin wrote:I disagree that the relationship was fully formed "at lightning speed—after only two encounters in the courtyard".
sauvin, I respect your track record for getting things right about the film. Your response (earlier, above) shows a nuanced understanding of the growing relationship between Oskar and Eli.

I would just ask you to consider additional (although not contradictory) aspects of the relationship. (Much of this additional understanding that I offer you is illustrated in the FF “When I Am With You” and in comments following it.)

As I commented there, "Part of why I wrote the story is my need to find a cogent thread that would allow Eli and Oskar's relationship to develop so quickly and so deeply. It went from "We can't be friends" and "Go home!" in the first two meetings to "Do I smell better?" in the third meeting. By the third meeting, Eli was already all in.

"Why is she in the courtyard talking to the boy in the first place if they can't be friends? That she doesn't know why doesn't mean that there isn't a reason. Dear Eli, get ready to be blindsided by something you've never experienced before--love at first sight.

"I assume that Eli and Oskar are developmentally at the same place—12. Oskar's feelings would normally change as he ages and interacts with family, teachers, and peers; but Eli's feelings are stuck at 12. Without Oskar, they could never develop because of the isolation and arrested physical growth imposed by her vampirism. Of course, we can see Oskar as immature for his age because of being an only child, having no friends, and so forth, but not stuck.

"Eli doesn't need to know that she is going through these changes. She doesn't know that she is already crazy in love with Oskar. She just knows she has a playmate (the first time since God knows how long)."

a_contemplative_life wrote elsewhere, “I think you're spot on about Eli's and Oskar's relationship with each other being founded on a kind of powerful yearning for one another that is not truly romantic, but in some ways might be thought to eclipse romantic ideas. They are, in some sense, ‘made for each other.’"

And I responded, “I think ‘made for each other’ is right. After all, how do two people who don't seem to be made for anyone bond so quickly and completely? They are two pieces of a puzzle that just snap into place when they get close to each other. Click! Whoosh! And the story takes off.”

The key here is “the story takes off.” You have described elements of the developing relationship that are what the film is about. That is the story that "takes off" and unfolds throughout. Additionally, though, it needs an understanding that Oskar and Eli don’t know what is happening at each step. That is common in love at first sight—things progress for days, weeks, or longer, and then two people realize that they can’t live without each other. Only then does the whole history of the relationship take on the mystical (and real) rubric of “love at first sight”-- that is, a holistic recognition of feelings that are not understood except in retrospect.

I’m talking about adult love as well as kid love, but how much less self-aware were Oskar and Eli? As you point out, she may well have killed Oskar and never have come to understand why she was attracted to him (rather than prudently avoiding him).

In a comment about the bed scene, I suggested that Oskar and Eli are still not aware of what their feelings mean. That’s part of how relationships play out. The head follows the heart. In psychological terms that you and I are comfortable with, the amygdala, hippocampus, and nearby, structures of the brain (some very ancient indeed) make decisions that the thinking brain is slow to acknowledge (and then often ends up taking credit for!). And as I wrote elsewhere about the bed scene, “The light bulbs on the Christmas tree aren't turning on real quick for either of them, and not at the same rate, either.”

So it is that Eli’s early behavior can be accounted for by something that happened emotionally and that led to a relationship, but that something was already settled as far as her limbic system was concerned. And it was powerful enough to help keep her from killing Oskar and to propel her to clean up for the Rubik’s cube meeting. Håkan got why she was cleaning up; Eli didn’t get it. In the end, perhaps neither kid really got it until the events at the pool scene. Eli, maybe; Oskar, no.

That’s my take on it and why I say it was a done deal from the start. The next hour and a half or so of the magnificent film illustrates how it all played out. And, again, I doff my hat to you for your knowledgeable and perceptive reading of their developing relationship.
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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Re: Monster or Child--A Narrative Weakness in LTROI

Post by PeteMork » Mon Feb 03, 2014 6:47 am

dongregg wrote:...And I responded, “I think ‘made for each other’ is right. After all, how do two people who don't seem to be made for anyone bond so quickly and completely? They are two pieces of a puzzle that just snap into place when they get close to each other. Click! Whoosh! And the story takes off.”
Sort of like this?

Image

Sorry. :oops: I couldn't resist. But seriously, I think your take is as good as any, backed up as it is with well-thought-out arguments . It seems quite possible to me, and obviously to Daniel Ether also. :D
We never stop reading, although every book comes to an end, just as we never stop living, although death is certain. (Roberto Bolaño)

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Re: Monster or Child--A Narrative Weakness in LTROI

Post by sauvin » Mon Feb 03, 2014 8:59 am

I'll certainly agree that the kids share inherent common ground, an allusion I suppose I was making rather ham-handedly by suggesting that Oskar's frozen and lifeless courtyard was Eli's, too, but to a far greater degree. As you say, Oskar isn't stuck, but even if there hadn't been an Eli to encourage him unwittingly to angering a psychopath, odds are nonzero he'd have died anyway at some point before his 18th birthday, most likely by suicide. Eli, well... before they'd met, would you really call what she was doing "living"?

What I don't agree is that it was a "done deal" the moment they met. My suspicion is that Eli spied Oskar unloading on a tree with a knife and may have been drawn by this display of emotional darkness. This isn't something anybody sees every night, and it's bound to have piqued her curiosity, but probably not more (at least, as suggested, not at the conscious level) - even if at some level she's bound to have told herself "here's a kid who might just be strange enough not to pee his pants if he were to find out what my diet is like". Oskar, in turn, was probably mildly interested in another kid who could talk to him without some kind of malicious agenda.

While they share considerable emotional weather, they both remain unsocialised. This means tout a la fois that (in tandem with their youth and lack of experience) they'll both be far more immediately prone to clinginess, but they'll also find the process of negotiating the terms of their relationship a boatload more prickly than would socially advantaged kids. Oskar was most decidedly pushy in applying binding labels and symbols to what they share. Eli wasn't prepared for it, may have had no idea what was happening to her, and actually wanted things to move a bit more slowly while she wrestles with the fear he'd reject her once he found out what she is.

While I claim the movie is a series of critical junctures at which their relationship could be marred, arrested or destroyed entirely if not circumnavigated just so, they vary in associated risk. The two most critical are in his bed and in her kitchen. Eli's immediate concern when he popped the question says volumes (although precisely of what nature is a matter of speculation if you've not read the novel); in this scene, the kids are as open and as vulnerable as it's possible to be, and we're watching a vampire skittishly feeling her way around it. The kitchen scene is similar in nature but in reversed direction: she has to ask him to accept something few sane people could, and she's clearly scared almost out of her wits. In his bed, if he'd have been just a bit pushier, there's a risk she'd have just flown out the window, called a cab and gone byebye. Later, if he hadn't been so massively tolerant, he himself could have gone byebye (or subsequently been found dead in the basement clubhouse or the nearby lake).

The feelings may have been a "done deal" because they could recognise in each other estrangement from the community, but before a real relationship could develop there had to be trust, and it had to grow for both. She has to be confident he's not going to pry the cardboard off the bathroom window if he gets mad at her, and he really has to be comfortable with her in his arms when he knows those icy lips kissing his throat can cost him his life in less time than it takes to tell.

This process of trust building began when she returned his puzzle. Yes, he was amazed at her accomplishment and thereby further intrigued by her, but subtextually learned that she can respect his belongings (and, by indirection, himself). Similar trust building happened behind the kiosk when Oskar didn't belittle or criticise her for yarking up his candy; instead, he expressed concern. Yes, she was wandering into uncharted emotional territory whose rules she can't hope to understand, but she learned that he can be tolerant and supportive in the face of strangeness.

The process of building trust was not truly complete for Eli until Lacke died, and was not truly complete for Oskar until Jimmy died.
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Re: Monster or Child--A Narrative Weakness in LTROI

Post by dongregg » Mon Feb 03, 2014 3:45 pm

PeteMork wrote:
dongregg wrote:...And I responded, “I think ‘made for each other’ is right. After all, how do two people who don't seem to be made for anyone bond so quickly and completely? They are two pieces of a puzzle that just snap into place when they get close to each other. Click! Whoosh! And the story takes off.”
Sort of like this?

Image

Sorry. :oops: I couldn't resist. But seriously, I think your take is as good as any, backed up as it is with well-thought-out arguments . It seems quite possible to me, and obviously to Daniel Ether also. :D
Okay, now you and Daniel Ether made me cry again...(emoticon "smiling through tears")
Last edited by dongregg on Wed Feb 05, 2014 3:47 pm, edited 1 time in total.
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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Re: Monster or Child--A Narrative Weakness in LTROI

Post by dongregg » Mon Feb 03, 2014 4:35 pm

sauvin wrote:While I claim the movie is a series of critical junctures at which their relationship could be marred, arrested or destroyed entirely if not circumnavigated just so, they vary in associated risk. The two most critical are in his bed and in her kitchen. Eli's immediate concern when he popped the question says volumes (although precisely of what nature is a matter of speculation if you've not read the novel); in this scene, the kids are as open and as vulnerable as it's possible to be, and we're watching a vampire skittishly feeling her way around it. The kitchen scene is similar in nature but in reversed direction: she has to ask him to accept something few sane people could, and she's clearly scared almost out of her wits. In his bed, if he'd have been just a bit pushier, there's a risk she'd have just flown out the window, called a cab and gone byebye. Later, if he hadn't been so massively tolerant, he himself could have gone byebye (or subsequently been found dead in the basement clubhouse or the nearby lake).

The feelings may have been a "done deal" because they could recognise in each other estrangement from the community, but before a real relationship could develop there had to be trust, and it had to grow for both. She has to be confident he's not going to pry the cardboard off the bathroom window if he gets mad at her, and he really has to be comfortable with her in his arms when he knows those icy lips kissing his throat can cost him his life in less time than it takes to tell.

This process of trust building began when she returned his puzzle. Yes, he was amazed at her accomplishment and thereby further intrigued by her, but subtextually learned that she can respect his belongings (and, by indirection, himself). Similar trust building happened behind the kiosk when Oskar didn't belittle or criticise her for yarking up his candy; instead, he expressed concern. Yes, she was wandering into uncharted emotional territory whose rules she can't hope to understand, but she learned that he can be tolerant and supportive in the face of strangeness.

The process of building trust was not truly complete for Eli until Lacke died, and was not truly complete for Oskar until Jimmy died.
Would that you and I could do a "mixology mind meld" and create a fan fiction that would thoroughly blend our readings. I think the resulting gestalt would have the whole WTI forum crying and laughing.

Oh wait--it's already been done--it's what this deeply textured, thoroughly satisfying film gives us!
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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Re: Monster or Child--A Narrative Weakness in LTROI

Post by dongregg » Tue Feb 04, 2014 5:44 pm

Forum members have from time to time found scholarly papers and reviews about the film and about Oskar and Eli. And some of the previous posts on this forum also rise to the level of scholarly analysis, such as Sauvin's post about Kohlberg and the moral developmental level of the kids. In my estimation, no critical review or scholarly analysis by non-forum members rises to the level of insight provided by Sauvin, ACL, and all of you on this particular thread. Taken together, the comments provide an analysis of the film's structure, deep psychological insights into the characters, and much more. This is heady stuff for a modest professional who appreciates such rigorously intelligent and empathic companionship.

Change gears with me. Many have decried the loss of community in the technologically advanced parts of the world. Relatives often no longer live near one another. Neighbors come and go. So, it is with some interest that I observe the growth of Internet communities such as Facebook. How will these play out? Clearly, WTI is one such community. I'm lucky to have stumbled across it and to have been welcomed into it.

Trige expresses how I feel pretty well--"You guys."
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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Re: Monster or Child--A Narrative Weakness in LTROI

Post by intrige » Tue Feb 04, 2014 9:07 pm

dongregg wrote: Trige expresses how I feel pretty well--"You guys."
:D

I would also like to add that it is very sweetthat many of you think Oskar and Eli fell for each other at first sight, unknowingly. Somehow, I had never thought of just that. Mindblown :shock: :lol:
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Re: Monster or Child--A Narrative Weakness in LTROI

Post by Bloody Mary » Tue Feb 04, 2014 10:43 pm

I strongly support Thesis K. Thesis M is very interesting and more complex (I think) as it requires more reading into the film, but it destroys the melancholy sweetness and is so pessimistic.
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Re: Monster or Child--A Narrative Weakness in LTROI

Post by EEA » Tue Feb 04, 2014 11:02 pm

I am thinking of watching the movie again and finding support for the Monster theory. :twisted:

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Re: Monster or Child--A Narrative Weakness in LTROI

Post by jetboy » Wed Feb 05, 2014 12:15 am

intrige wrote:I would also like to add that it is very sweetthat many of you think Oskar and Eli fell for each other at first sight, unknowingly. Somehow, I had never thought of just that. Mindblown :shock: :lol:
Thats the way I felt. Maybe not full blown but the spark was instantaneous. The "I want to be alone" and "who says I want to be your friend" was kind of a part of the game. I felt, especially with Oskar, that his bullying problem was about the farthest thing from his mind after meeting Eli.

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