Owen the Strong One

[DarkGuyver]

Is it possible that Owen's mask at the start of the movie was modeled after Richard Jenkins' face as a kind of foreshadowing of future events?

It certaintly looks like his face.

The mask that Owen is wearing when Abby and Thomas move into to the apartment complex is actually made from a mold of Richard Jenkin's face.

[sauvin]

I wonder why it's transparent...?

[a_contemplative_life]

I always thought that that mask was one of the stranger elements of LMI. I thought it added a downright creepy feel to Owen's window-peeping habits. I guess I've always thought those see-through masks are scarier than solid ones...

[sauvin]

I always thought that that mask was one of the stranger elements of LMI. I thought it added a downright creepy feel to Owen's window-peeping habits. I guess I've always thought those see-through masks are scarier than solid ones...

As usual, a thought hits me while I'm getting dressed to head off to work.

The knife swiped from the kitchen, the mask, the telescope, Virginia's unguarded exposure and Abby's arrival all seem interrelated. If it's true that the mask is taken from Jenkin's face, it seems clear enough then that Owen was wearing Thomas' face when running through his violent fantasy in front of the mirror. Here is a potentially loaded bomb for discussion in the forum

Owen is a bit young to understand a knife's phallic symbolism, I think (even if we greybeards have such little trouble with it as seems hardly worth mentioning), but he's certainly not too young to understand the comfort of having such an instrument at hand even when not in immediate physical danger. Knifes, clubs, stones and the like are ancient tools for hunting and defence, ancient enough possibly for it to have become instinctive to us to take comfort from them. They extend our reach and magnify our power; it's not really death and dismemberment for his tormentors Owen wishes for, he just wants to be large enough and powerful enough to be no longer tormented, and it's not really revenge I see Owen acting out, it's just a desire for safety and a bit of vindication.

Masks may be newer to us as a species. I don't believe they've ever helped us hunt (for food), although they may have been useful in times of conflict. If you're wearing a mask when you bring nasty business to your neighbour, you frustrate his ability to know whom to sneak up on while you're sleeping. In later times of our history, a kind of mask in the form of facial armour may have been fairly common, protecting eyes and nose from battleground injury, but I think the simple concept of "anonymity" is more relevant here.

A transparent mask is a bit harder to figure. It still masks, but not perfectly. The underlying identity isn't so much concealed as distorted. Wearing this kind of mask during a violent fantasy is almost two-faced: Owen is saying "Fear me." with the knife but "See me how I would like to be seen, rather than how I believe you see me". It's a convoluted plea for acceptance and understanding.

Does wearing something on his face give Owen a feeling of safety, that he can maybe pretend despte the mask's transparency that he's Batman or Spiderman, some other relatively unassailable superhero? That maybe it would somehow serve to distance or insulate him from whatever damage he desires or fantasises himself about to wreak?

I don't remember that any particular thing prompted him to turn his attention away from the mirror and from his knife. One presumes he simply has the attention span of a typical boy his age, but it's also something of a statement that Owen is not consumed by violent fantasy. He simply indulges it on occasion.

The telescope is a fusion of the knife and the mask. What better? If knowledge is the power, what greater strength to have than to probe an enemy's vulnerabilities? If a mask is a shield, then a telescope serves both functions simultaneously. Sheer distance theoretically shields him from detection and repercussion as he invades other people's lives.

And invade he does. We're shown two such invasions, one involving a man going about his bodybuilding exercises (foreshadowing, maybe?) and the other into a couple's developing intimacy.

The movie's score in the seconds leading up to Virginia's exposure is a bit amusing, in fact, since it seems to build slow medium high-pitched tension across a set of chords before reaching a local climax a few seconds before the exposure, and dropping suddenly as Owen realises he'd been spotted. (Where had your hands been, Owen?) The tension, sharply defined with the "haunting, plaintive" tones of an oboe, is tentative, delicate, as would would expect of a twelve year old boy for whom involvement with this aspect of adult human experience may even be unprecedented.

The mask and the telescope are a kind of combined message that Owen would like to be part of the larger world; the telescope may well represent a resentment that Owen feels safe only in his own bedroom (even while the fact that it "telescopes" may have other implications as well), where the mask seems to be saying "But don't hurt me..."

When Owen dares pop his head up again, the curtains are being closed. It's easy enough to imagine that even while he might feel a bit of guilt for his invasion (or maybe just a bit of shame at having been caught), he'd still be sensitive enough to interpret the closing curtains as yet another rejection: GET AWAY, they say, YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE.

Enter Abby. She's seen striding in the snow wearing a dress at a time when girls her age wearing dresses were no longer common. She, too, is exposing herself, bare feet having "connotations" even to folk lacking fetishes in this area. Owen was almost certain to have noticed her bare feet in the snow, and the dress and bare feet pretty much assured he'd remember her, and be curious about her. She was unusual, maybe by some remote chance even unusual in a way that could allow her to accept him.

Here, maybe, was a girl moving in next door with whom he wouldn't need telescopes, knifes or masks.

[Nightrider]

Here's a simple legend found by cursory web search.
A mask is a covering worn on the face to conceal one's identity, as:
a.A covering, as of cloth, that has openings for the eyes, entirely or partly conceals the face, and is worn especially at a masquerade ball.
b.A grotesque or comical representation of a face, worn especially to frighten or amuse, as at Halloween.
c.A facial covering worn for ritual.
d.A figure of a head worn by actors in Greek and Roman drama to identify a character or trait and to amplify the voice.

The mask that Owen wears appears to be a concealment from his "fantasy victims" at it's best(if seen within the context of the film)...at it's worst it might just be a convenient device by film makers since a regular rubber mask wouldn't be that effective and a possible facsimile of Richard Jenkins'/Thomas' face seemed more alarming and clever. It really could be that simple...
In any case, adding mask to the knife makes Owen much more of a sick puppy than Oskar ever hoped to be...

She, too, is exposing herself, bare feet having "connotations" even to folk lacking fetishes in this area. Owen was almost certain to have noticed her bare feet in the snow, and the dress and bare feet pretty much assured he'd remember her, and be curious about her.

This is a peculiar part of the film, since there's really no reason for Abby to appear barefoot with such frequency...In LTROI Eli going shoeless once or twice and this has a simple explanation. In LMI, Abby's huge feet almost asking for a co-starring credit since they get so much screen time...It does sort of borders on fetishistic device which could be an explanation for this movie's small, but zealous following.


Can't believe I'm here discussing Le Me In....

[PeteMork]

...When Owen dares pop his head up again, the curtains are being closed. It's easy enough to imagine that even while he might feel a bit of guilt for his invasion (or maybe just a bit of shame at having been caught), he'd still be sensitive enough to interpret the closing curtains as yet another rejection: GET AWAY, they say, YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE.

Enter Abby. She's seen striding in the snow wearing a dress at a time when girls her age wearing dresses were no longer common. She, too, is exposing herself, bare feet having "connotations" even to folk lacking fetishes in this area. Owen was almost certain to have noticed her bare feet in the snow, and the dress and bare feet pretty much assured he'd remember her, and be curious about her. She was unusual, maybe by some remote chance even unusual in a way that could allow her to accept him.

Here, maybe, was a girl moving in next door with whom he wouldn't need telescopes, knifes or masks.

And this could explain why Reeves seemed to overemphasize Abby's barefootedness.

Owen going out the next morning to examine her footprints wasn’t necessarily a dumbing-down of the plot for American audiences who might have missed it; it was quite possibly to emphasize this startling oddness about Abby that attracted Owen to her in the first place. Wearing a dress, bare-legged, in below-freezing weather is one thing; going barefoot in that weather is quite another. Owen went downstairs the next morning to double-check because he could scarcely believe it himself.

This sets up the first meeting between them, where Owen is able to treat Abby as an equal, as one being on the same low level on the totem pole as himself.

[lombano]

The mask discussion reminds me of J. L. Borges, when commenting about nightmares, mentions one in which he was looking at himself in the mirror wearing a mask. He was terrified of taking the mask off, because he was terrified of what his real face might look like, that it might be that of evil or leprosy or a horror beyond what he could even imagine. Wearing a mask can be both protective and terrifying. There is a certain symmetry perhaps with Abby's hoodie - not quite a mask, but still hides her somewhat.

[sauvin]

In discussing masks, telescopes and knives, their sexually loaded symbolism to the American mind, Owen's apparently nascent or even burgeoning sexual curiosity as he spies on Virginia and her boyfriend, and Abby's arrival, it may bear noting that we are ourselves voyeurs. We're seeing an Owen tel qu'il soit, so to speak, an Owen that nobody else ever sees, not even his own mother. Clad in nothing but Fruit of the Loom briefs and a transparent mask, this is Owen just as candid, as open and as vulnerable as he knows how to be - and he's shown wishing he were somebody or something other than what he actually is.

[sauvin]

I've just happened to be watching LMI again when I noticed Thomas's last procurement attempt really started falling apart when the guy in the front seat turned around to get something out of the back seat and realised Thomas was there - but only by seeing his FEET first. Thomas was wearing that silly garbage-bag mask, and it did a beautiful job of making it harder to realise that there was a man in the back seat until he moved.

[ofelia]

We're seeing an Owen tel qu'il soit, so to speak, an Owen that nobody else ever sees, not even his own mother. Clad in nothing but Fruit of the Loom briefs and a transparent mask, this is Owen just as candid, as open and as vulnerable as he knows how to be - and he's shown wishing he were somebody or something other than what he actually is.

That mask was one of the few things that really scared me in the movie, but I liked it. It sort of called back to the moment in the book where Oskar looks in the mirror and sees the clown saying kill him... kill him... But Oskar frightens himself at the same time. I don't remember if that showed in LMI.

I've just happened to be watching LMI again when I noticed Thomas's last procurement attempt really started falling apart when the guy in the front seat turned around to get something out of the back seat and realised Thomas was there - but only by seeing his FEET first. Thomas was wearing that silly garbage-bag mask, and it did a beautiful job of making it harder to realise that there was a man in the back seat until he moved.

I liked that too, I thought it was much more effective a scene than the one at the pool locker room in the other movie. Håkan seemed to have hardly any strength and even little motivation...when he gave up it felt like he was saying, oh well. Thomas was really earnestly trying to help Abby though, it seemed like he would go to any lengths to get that blood.