Bath of Blood

For discussion of John Ajvide Lindqvist's novel Låt den rätte komma in
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Ash
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Re: Bath of Blood

Post by Ash » Fri Apr 22, 2016 11:31 am

These things can be done sensitively and in a blackened basement you would only see snippets of what was actually happening. Think The Virgin Spring. If Ingmar Bergman could do this in broad daylight to his little Karin in 1960, was it impossible to do it in 2008 Sweden? That's not the reason. The fact is novels don't usually translate too well to films, and it was TA's film so he had artistic control over what went in and not. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

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banjoist123
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Re: Bath of Blood

Post by banjoist123 » Wed May 18, 2016 12:35 pm

There are a lot of elements of the novel that would have been just too much for the screen. This is also true of every Stephen King novel I've read that has been made into a movie. He and Kubrick had a long standing feud over the movie as it took so many licenses with the book. But it made for a great movie. I think the same thing here. JAL knew exactly how much to reveal in a visual format, playing loosely with the issue of gender, as well. Does it make it fundamentally different from the book? Not in any way that bothered me. They stand independently of one another, each great in their own regard, in my opinion. I think the film was the product of a great collaboration between director and author.
I want to close my eyes very tightly, concentrate, hear the sounds around me disappear, sense the night against my closed eyelids, feel snow flakes hit my cheeks, feel the cold of the jungle gym, and hear the sound of light approaching footsteps…

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dongregg
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Re: Bath of Blood

Post by dongregg » Wed May 18, 2016 5:31 pm

banjoist123 wrote:...JAL knew exactly how much to reveal in a visual format, playing loosely with the issue of gender, as well. Does it make it fundamentally different from the book? Not in any way that bothered me. They stand independently of one another, each great in their own regard, in my opinion. I think the film was the product of a great collaboration between director and author.
I share this minority opinion completely. The film and the novel can be judged as complete works. Neither depends on the other to be a satisfying experience for the reader or the viewer.

I saw the film more than 3 years ago and joined WTI 4 months later. I was quickly put off by the confusion generated by trying to explain the film with stuff in the novel, and the novel by stuff in the film. There was little agreement about motivations or anything else.

How could there be? It would be like trying to explain the Mona Lisa in terms of the Last Supper. Not useful. They don't even need explaining. Most of the ink spilled about the Mona Lisa is about the Mona Lisa (and mostly about her smile :) ), not about explaining it in comparison to other works.

But when I presented the futility of explaining the film by way of the novel, I read a post that stopped me from fussing about it. The post said, "Yeah, but it's fun."

Seems to be. But having read the novel almost 3 years to the day of having first seen the film, my comparisons will not be about the motivation of the characters. If we don't know the motivation, raiding one work or the other for clues is neither fun nor clarifying.

Off line, I'll be sharing my thoughts with a friend who is firmly in the majority camp of those who think the film and novel are part of a single, seamless story. Fine. But I'll be talking about the parts of each that stand out for me, such as Eli's wiggle when Oskar comes running up to her with the Rubik's cube, and Mr. Ávila's joy when he is ice skating alone. Both scenes fill me with joy.

With the first viewing alive in my mind and feelings, I wrote "When I Am with You." I wrote it to show how I viewed the film as a whole, satisfied that unanswered questions didn't need to be answered.

I added a part a few months after I posted it to tie together Eli's tirade at Håkan and her pissy mood on the jungle gym. It was a mistake, but I'll leave it. A very young member pointed out that the tirade was not anger, but panic, hysteria, because she knew what she would have to do. In subsequent rewrites, I sparingly took backstory from the novel, because "When I Am with You" has become a fan fiction that members used to help me be a better writer. The core of "When I Am with You" is still as told by a first-time viewer.

I'm glad I read the novel, just as I'm glad I saw the play in Brooklyn and read the short story, "Let the Old Dreams Die."

Oh, about the bath of blood. Metoo's post works for me. Just pretend it isn't there. Nothing will make it work. It is an aberration, a hiccup.
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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Ash
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Re: Bath of Blood

Post by Ash » Sat May 21, 2016 8:04 am

The trouble with picking and choosing what to include as valid is that I could equally say that after Eli's failed suicide attempt she planned to "have everything", her words, and take what she wanted come hell or high water.
Hence she made a bloody mess at the pool house giving Oskar no option other than to run away with her. Poor Oskar had no way of explaining the circumstances of Eli's massacre, so he took off with her as Eli planned he would.
I could, if given the freedom of this "hiccup" in Eli's character, also explain that it is not uncommon for 12 year olds to have highly refined skills in manipulation and deception and Eli would have had centuries to further refine these out of the pure necessity for survival.
This is in no way an evil Eli. It's a JAL Eli, a normal Eli, and I can only respect her more for acting in a way that most of us would given her circumstances.

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metoo
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Re: Bath of Blood

Post by metoo » Sat May 21, 2016 11:35 am

Ash wrote:The trouble with picking and choosing what to include as valid is that I could equally say that after Eli's failed suicide attempt she planned to "have everything", her words, and take what she wanted come hell or high water.
Hence she made a bloody mess at the pool house giving Oskar no option other than to run away with her. Poor Oskar had no way of explaining the circumstances of Eli's massacre, so he took off with her as Eli planned he would.
That would have been some very quick "planning", indeed. :think:

As I read the novel Eli arrived at the bath house just in time to save Oskar. He couldn't have known beforehand that Oskar would be in such a predicament. Instead I get the impression that Eli was nearly panicking, banging on the door to get the necessary invitation. And when he had got it he just crashed through the window, instead of wasting precious time to get the door opened.

Furthermore I don't think it is necessarily true that Oskar had "no option other than to run away" with Eli after the massacre. In any case I think that Eli had little reason to believe that this must be the outcome. Instead I believe Eli had every reason to think that Oskar might be abhorred by what Eli did to the Forsberg brothers. This was Oskar's reaction when Eli killed Lacke, so why would he behave differently at the much more extreme violence in the pool house? I also think it took Oskar a good night's sleep and then the major part of next morning to come to this decision. Otherwise he and Eli would have been on a much earlier train from Stockholm, and Eli wouldn't have had to travel inside a trunk. So my idea is that Eli waked all night by the sleeping Oskar, anxiously waiting for what Oskar would say when he eventually woke up the next morning.

All in all, I think that Eli actually might have been surprised when Oskar eventually wanted to run away with him. Surprised and overjoyed.
But from the beginning Eli was just Eli. Nothing. Anything. And he is still a mystery to me. John Ajvide Lindqvist

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a_contemplative_life
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Re: Bath of Blood

Post by a_contemplative_life » Sat May 21, 2016 6:32 pm

I've always wondered what time of day it was when Oskar is on the train. It seems light outside, yet Eli is awake enough to tap on the box lid. I would have thought Eli would be asleep during the day.
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Drakeule
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Re: Bath of Blood

Post by Drakeule » Sat May 21, 2016 6:42 pm

a_contemplative_life wrote:I've always wondered what time of day it was when Oskar is on the train. It seems light outside, yet Eli is awake enough to tap on the box lid. I would have thought Eli would be asleep during the day.
Well, Virginia could fight sleep for awhile when the sun came up so she could kill herself. I'm sure Eli could do the same. So, just a guess, it was the morning after the pool.

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dongregg
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Re: Bath of Blood

Post by dongregg » Sat May 21, 2016 7:17 pm

Drakeule wrote:
a_contemplative_life wrote:I've always wondered what time of day it was when Oskar is on the train. It seems light outside, yet Eli is awake enough to tap on the box lid. I would have thought Eli would be asleep during the day.
Well, Virginia could fight sleep for awhile when the sun came up so she could kill herself. I'm sure Eli could do the same. So, just a guess, it was the morning after the pool.
Or the afternoon so it would be dark when they arrived at Karlstad.

Or, if my Morse code is accurate, it could have been after they had settled down into a domestic routine. I think Oskar taps:

"Yes I packed the egg puzzle. Now go to sleep."
“For drama to deepen, we must see the loneliness of the monster and the cunning of the innocent.”

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Drakeule
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Re: Bath of Blood

Post by Drakeule » Sat May 21, 2016 8:10 pm

dongregg wrote: Or, if my Morse code is accurate
Umm... I don't think it's accurate. :lol:

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Re: Bath of Blood

Post by jkwilliams » Fri Jun 24, 2016 10:38 pm

When I read this part I wondered if this might be what happened to all the blood that became too old for Eli to use. :think:
You know, anything that was leftover or went "bad" because a caretaker took too long returning home. Håkan is warned about the importance of fresh blood so we know that last one seems to be an ongoing problem. Would Eli really have thrown away all those jugs full of old blood or would he try to save them up and take them with him if he could?

He has three little boxes with him at the end of the story but at the beginning they showed up at the apartment with a moving truck so we don't really know what all he had. The driver just remembered it being strange they hardly had any furniture. That might be how all those jugs got there.

I still can't think of a good reason why Eli would want to sleep in blood but it doesn't seem like something that's necessary for him to live. We're told he takes showers in that tub when Håkan is living there so the blood doesn't even show up till after he's gone. He may have chosen now to empty the jugs because he's alone and knows he can't take them with him this time.

Reminds me a little of that episode of Seinfeld where Kramer saves his own blood in the freezer. :D

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