The Policeman vs Lacke

[a_contemplative_life]

I see the symbolism you are getting at but that doesn't make Lacke and Virginia a weak point. Of course we are rooting for Eli but we (or at least I) still know that Eli is killing a flesh and blood human with a background. He's not fleshed out like the book but that doesn't lessen the impact of us rooting for Eli against an innocent person whos friend and lover were killed. As a matter of fact, Lacke and Virginia were more fleshed out than the cop so... Its just a different perspective, with LMI you are talking about what all this does to Owen where as in LTROI its about us still rooting for Eli after killing an innocent.

Plus LTROI is more about the love story and Lacke, Virginia, etc, give creedence to the vampirism. In some ways the vampirism merely makes the love story much more fun and interesting than it would be without it. In other ways its more important.

If you can mentally untangle yourself from the love story between Eli and Oskar, the feelings that we are led to experience about the fate of Lacke are objectively quite subversive, from a moral perspective. I think that one of the things that JAL was trying to set up in the story.

[BurgerPrince]

I see the symbolism you are getting at but that doesn't make Lacke and Virginia a weak point. Of course we are rooting for Eli but we (or at least I) still know that Eli is killing a flesh and blood human with a background. He's not fleshed out like the book but that doesn't lessen the impact of us rooting for Eli against an innocent person whos friend and lover were killed. As a matter of fact, Lacke and Virginia were more fleshed out than the cop so... Its just a different perspective, with LMI you are talking about what all this does to Owen where as in LTROI its about us still rooting for Eli after killing an innocent.

Plus LTROI is more about the love story and Lacke, Virginia, etc, give creedence to the vampirism. In some ways the vampirism merely makes the love story much more fun and interesting than it would be without it. In other ways its more important.

I get what you're saying, but I found the alcoholics to be a distraction in the Swedish film, or at least in my opinion. They were fairly fleshed out as minor characters in LMI, but their roles were reduced, to bring more of a focus on Abby and Owen. (I barely cared about them until I read the book) LMI does indeed have the twist in which you're rooting for Abby, but you don't feel comfortable while you're doing it, as Abby is killing an innocent policeman in the line of duty.

LMI is just as much about the love story, but with a different theme.

[jetboy]

I see the symbolism you are getting at but that doesn't make Lacke and Virginia a weak point. Of course we are rooting for Eli but we (or at least I) still know that Eli is killing a flesh and blood human with a background. He's not fleshed out like the book but that doesn't lessen the impact of us rooting for Eli against an innocent person whos friend and lover were killed. As a matter of fact, Lacke and Virginia were more fleshed out than the cop so... Its just a different perspective, with LMI you are talking about what all this does to Owen where as in LTROI its about us still rooting for Eli after killing an innocent.

Plus LTROI is more about the love story and Lacke, Virginia, etc, give creedence to the vampirism. In some ways the vampirism merely makes the love story much more fun and interesting than it would be without it. In other ways its more important.

I get what you're saying, but I found the alcoholics to be a distraction in the Swedish film, or at least in my opinion. They were fairly fleshed out as minor characters in LMI, but their roles were reduced, to bring more of a focus on Abby and Owen. (I barely cared about them until I read the book) LMI does indeed have the twist in which you're rooting for Abby, but you don't feel comfortable while you're doing it, as Abby is killing an innocent policeman in the line of duty.

LMI is just as much about the love story, but with a different theme.

Meh, Lacke was just supposed to be a normal person and as a normal person, his life should just be automatically respected, and I think the film meant that it be viewed that way. Its obvious that we are supposed to have mixed emotions about rooting for Eli over Lacke unlike some cheesy western where people get shot and they bend over and no one cares, its not THAT kind of movie.

And also as I said before in another post, the townsfolk fill a need in that they populate the town in which Eli is terrifying. LTROI is filled with with bits that tell the audience that the town Oskar lives in is a populated town, like a person walking down a path or a person coming through a door or a car passing by, a truck passing over a bridge, a dog barking in the distance. All these different things really have nothing to do with the plot but they indicate a real and normal place, which is so key to the magic of LTROI. The townsfolk help with this too. LMI on the other hand shows population only when serving the plot. You talk about the people that took the place of the townsfolk like the jogger and Virginia, well they also double as symbols of Owens insecurities, they both double as Owens desire to be more masculine. Though clever, it isn't realistic. Life is much more random and isn't filled with symbolism unless done by man. LMI is teeming full of symbolism all taking away from realism.

[sauvin]

... the townsfolk fill a need in that they populate the town in which Eli is terrifying. LTROI is filled with with bits that tell the audience that the town Oskar lives in is a populated town, like a person walking down a path or a person coming through a door or a car passing by, a truck passing over a bridge, a dog barking in the distance. All these different things really have nothing to do with the plot but they indicate a real and normal place, which is so key to the magic of LTROI. The townsfolk help with this too.

What's more, the dysfunctional drunks in the LTROI movie become the forces (albeit in guise of an unkempt and dissolute Lacke) that cause Eli to leave town. These are normal people being terrorised, being attacked and victimised, having their lives destroyed; the moment she attacked Jocke, Eli set into motion these forces.

It's a graphic illustration of how episodic must be Eli's life, that wherever she goes, no matter how careful she tries to be, eventually the community will recognise that something isn't right, and they'll start looking for that not-right thing. Ineffectual career drunk in Eli's case, a decent but bumbling cop looking for a cult rather than a genuine monster in Abby's case, somebody came looking.

It also sheds light on why the girls might want or "need" "minders": they're cutouts. Goesta had trouble convincing the gang that a child attacked and killed Jocke; nobody could have believed it until Lacke had seen it for himself. He must have suspected immediately that he wasn't dealing with an ordinary kid. Hakan and Thomas being confined to a hospital room after their traumatic self-inflicted injuries gave the girls time to make plans, witness the cop's insistence that Thomas tell him where others of his coven might be. If it were to come out that Hakan and Thomas had been responsible for so many horrific murders, even if they told authorities why, who would believe it? - but if too many reasonably credible witnesses were to swear that a child was running around draining full-sized people, might not a potentially fatally interesting manhunt ensue?

I have a strong suspicion these "filler characters" support the story a lot more substantially than might appear at first glance.

[jetboy]

... the townsfolk fill a need in that they populate the town in which Eli is terrifying. LTROI is filled with with bits that tell the audience that the town Oskar lives in is a populated town, like a person walking down a path or a person coming through a door or a car passing by, a truck passing over a bridge, a dog barking in the distance. All these different things really have nothing to do with the plot but they indicate a real and normal place, which is so key to the magic of LTROI. The townsfolk help with this too.

What's more, the dysfunctional drunks in the LTROI movie become the forces (albeit in guise of an unkempt and dissolute Lacke) that cause Eli to leave town. These are normal people being terrorised, being attacked and victimised, having their lives destroyed; the moment she attacked Jocke, Eli set into motion these forces.

It's a graphic illustration of how episodic must be Eli's life, that wherever she goes, no matter how careful she tries to be, eventually the community will recognise that something isn't right, and they'll start looking for that not-right thing. Ineffectual career drunk in Eli's case, a decent but bumbling cop looking for a cult rather than a genuine monster in Abby's case, somebody came looking.

It also sheds light on why the girls might want or "need" "minders": they're cutouts. Goesta had trouble convincing the gang that a child attacked and killed Jocke; nobody could have believed it until Lacke had seen it for himself. He must have suspected immediately that he wasn't dealing with an ordinary kid. Hakan and Thomas being confined to a hospital room after their traumatic self-inflicted injuries gave the girls time to make plans, witness the cop's insistence that Thomas tell him where others of his coven might be. If it were to come out that Hakan and Thomas had been responsible for so many horrific murders, even if they told authorities why, who would believe it? - but if too many reasonably credible witnesses were to swear that a child was running around draining full-sized people, might not a potentially fatally interesting manhunt ensue?

I have a strong suspicion these "filler characters" support the story a lot more substantially than might appear at first glance.

I always thought LTROI reminded me of the old monster movies, this may be a big reason why. At first I thought it was merely that the monster was sympathetic but its also because of the townfolk.

[BurgerPrince]

I just didn't find them so important until I read the book, and a film shouldn't be that way.

"jetboy wrote:... the townsfolk fill a need in that they populate the town in which Eli is terrifying. LTROI is filled with with bits that tell the audience that the town Oskar lives in is a populated town, like a person walking down a path or a person coming through a door or a car passing by, a truck passing over a bridge, a dog barking in the distance. All these different things really have nothing to do with the plot but they indicate a real and normal place, which is so key to the magic of LTROI. The townsfolk help with this too."

I think LMI did a just as much a good job as LTROI at illustrating the town as a living society, as Reeves did include the realistic details mentioned. The significance of the Policeman, I think, is that Reeves wanted to illustrate the desperation and push to survive, by both the mortals and by Abby, conflicting against each other. Abby is desperate to survive as a vampire, but the police investigation also represents that it ain't all about Abby, we mortals need to survive too, and the policeman is the embodiment of all of her actions affecting the town.

[sauvin]

I just didn't find them so important until I read the book, and a film shouldn't be that way.

I'll agree that movies shouldn't need books to fill in what the movies don't explain. This is part of the fascination with LTROI, that it has elusive subtleties. The only major "unexplained" in it that I find is exactly what Hakan is supposed to be; most of the rest of the salient content is there to be studied. By contrast, the only thing I find in LMI that's not outwardly explained is the cop's busting down Abby's door.

I think LMI did a just as much a good job as LTROI at illustrating the town as a living society, as Reeves did include the realistic details mentioned.

LMI did a great job at showing a society in which everybody does his own thing and doesn't really have much to do with anybody else. There's no China Restaurant Scooby Gang to notice that Thomas and Abby moved into Janne's old place, and no Goesta to go to them in shock to report Jocke's murder. There's no Scooby Gang to try to convince him to report what he'd seen to the police. It's not apparent that Virginia has any idea who anybody else is in the movie, for example, where LTROI's Virginia knew everybody.

Nobody, in fact, seemed to know anybody else.

What there is is an apparent stay-at-home Mom who festoons her apartment with a random lot of religious artifacts while sucking down cheap dinner wine by the gallon and watching a plastic electronic church on TV. Contrast this with Oskar's mother, who (in the movie, anyway) seemed very well put together, kept it clean, kept it well-ordered and may have had a regular job.

There's no "community" in 1982 Los Alamos, and this is one of the major differences between the two movies.

The significance of the Policeman, I think, is that Reeves wanted to illustrate the desperation and push to survive, by both the mortals and by Abby, conflicting against each other. Abby is desperate to survive as a vampire, but the police investigation also represents that it ain't all about Abby, we mortals need to survive too, and the policeman is the embodiment of all of her actions affecting the town.

I have no idea what Reeves might have wanted to illustrate, but as far as I can see, there was no "police investigation", there was a single cop who seemed to have something of a crusade going on against "cults". The surface idea was that the cop had no idea what he was really looking for because it was hidden - Abby is very adept at hiding - but the subtext is a tired old American trope from the 50's that Authority is clueless and ineffectual, together with some relatively new subtext that Authority can also be rash, overhanded and dangerous to themselves and to others.

Abby and the cop certainly had conflicting interests, but they were never "conflicting against each other". The only time they ever came into contact was when he died, presumably never having had any hope of understanding what was killing him, or why.

Empty politics on TV in an abandoned hospital lobby, empty religion on the TV playing out for a lonely woman lost in a pickled slumber, empty or absent community, empty authority (not only in the guise of a bumbling cop but also as manifested by a school system that has little idea what's happening to its kids, and seeming to care less), all of these things are reflected in distilled and purified essence both as Owen sits in an empty wintertime courtyard gobbling down empty calories and absently singing a commercial jingle "Eat some now, save some for later" and as he sits in the train with his terrifying new girlfriend in a footlocker at his feet singing the exact same thing in a very different emotional context.

[jetboy]

I'll agree that movies shouldn't need books to fill in what the movies don't explain. This is part of the fascination with LTROI, that it has elusive subtleties. The only major "unexplained" in it that I find is exactly what Hakan is supposed to be; most of the rest of the salient content is there to be studied. By contrast, the only thing I find in LMI that's not outwardly explained is the cop's busting down Abby's door.

Exactly. According BurgerPrince, LMI has "ambiguity" but LTROI is "unexplained". LMI is the movie that has everything handed to the audience whereas LTROI has much more going on behind the scenes. As a matter of fact, so much of LTROI's ambiguity was stolen by LMI like Thomas having been with Abbey since childhood.

[DavidZahir]

Folks complain LMI is somehow less ambiguous that LTROI when the fact so many people argue about what happened in the film frankly proves them wrong. The ambiguity is there, but in a different place!

[jetboy]

Folks complain LMI is somehow less ambiguous that LTROI when the fact so many people argue about what happened in the film frankly proves them wrong. The ambiguity is there, but in a different place!

Yeah but I was arguing against it being said that LTROI didn't have ambiguity that it was instead incomplete or unexplained. Sure LMI is ambiguous, but its obviously ambiguous, the ambiguity has got to be faced, how will Owen end up, is he being forced into this life or is he doing it gladly. In other words, you know theres ambiguity as youre watching it. LTROI has ambiguity also but it doesn't demand that you face it, its main demand is the love story. However, it also demands that the many ambiguities be pondered upon AFTER you see it. Why did Hakan do the things he did and what was Hakan's and Eli's relationship all about? Some people stayed with that he was just creepy, while I saw that he could have been where Oskar is now, 30-40 years ago.