But first, to understand why this project might take me some time, I wanted to talk about a movie I recently saw, and that has stuck with me since then. It’s a movie that has made me regain my interest in cinema, as I was tired of watching the same stories and recycled characters over and over. It’s a 2008 swedish movie called “Låt den rätte komma in” (Let the Right One In). I sincerely believe this is one of the greatest movies I’ve ever seen.

Link to the movie @ IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1139797/

But why am I so excited about it? Well, for starters, I found the technical aspects were perfect. Music is touching, the photography is gorgeous (even though I haven’t watched it in cinemascope projection) and the casting dida fine job choosing the actors. But what really got me hooked – and that’s what I intend to talk about here – was the way the story is told!

From now on, I’ll have to talk about the movie, so there may will be spoilers… If you haven’t watched it, I suggest you do not read the following, as it may change the way you understand it (and that’s the whole point of this post). :-P

Ok, so on to the movie (make sure you watched it, please!):

Eli is bad. Manipulative. Cold. Her intentions are selfish, and only serve her. She knows how to use her charm – she’s done it countless times before. She is the perfect evil. I personally get the impression that she is one of the greatest villians of all time, and that is because you just can’t help falling in love with her.

I’m not going to discuss about the relationship between Eli and Oskar. But I must say that they are perfect together, and their love IS true – each part of the couple providing love in its own way. Still, that’s not the point I’m trying to get to. Moving on!

What got me by surprise is that few people I talked with had this impression that Eli is cruel. Everybody praised the adorable (yet extremely unstable) mood of hers, and how she cared about Oskar.  On a movie review I’ve read, the critic stated that the movie “had to use an older woman turning into a vampire to show Eli’s heroic struggle against her inner beast”. Could they be more wrong? It’s the other way around! That woman’s suicide is there to show us how cold Eli is! After all, the heroic struggle is the that woman suicide act (a hero would kill himself if he realized he had to murder people in order to survive).

Eli’s seduction has flooded the screen and reached us all. Her irresistible charms managed to cloud our thoughts intirely. In the end of the movie, she got what she wanted from the very beginning: A new servant, to replace the old, clumsy one. And she turned all of us into her accomplices as well, myself included. I may be going too far, but I think of her a a supernatural, modern Capitu ;-)

Anyway, Gammabeam’s supposed to be a gaming blog! What’s this rambling all about?

Hmmm, I guess I’ll leave it to my next post! But I think you know where I’m going, right?