I noticed Dan posted about this film on his main blog. For some reason, the "leave a response" function isn't working, so I figured I'd start a thread here.

Jim and I saw it last night on NetFlix. It was good, lapping Twilight eight times around the block in terms of quality and atmosphere. It also creeped me the heck out (even now as I write this, I'm looking over my shoulder into the dark gym... I saw my towel from the corner of my eye and my heart jumped...)

It's not like The Ring or other such movies that are pervasively terrifying. (You fill in your example, since fear is subjective.) Rather, this film capitalizes on the completely underutilized technique called "subtlety." There were easily three moments in this movie where Jim and I looked at each other and said, "Did you see..." or "something was different..." (looking over my shoulder again... I should bring my laptop upstairs...) There was no ridiculous musical crescendo or LOOK AT THIS camera move. It was just there, and so well done that it was impossible for your brain to miss, even if you didn't consciously register it.

One of these instances I found particularly disturbing, but not for any real creep-out reason. It just went against was I was OK with seeing in a movie, at least when I'm not expecting it. I'm not a prude, but frontal nudity of adolescent children is wrong, at least in this context. Check that-- I'm open minded, but there are extremely few instances when its OK, and for the life of me, I can't think of what they'd be. What bothered me more is at the time, there was no context or explanation for what we saw. Yes, if the scene lasted more than 2 seconds, it was long, but it was still shocking.

Since Netflix is devoid of extra-knowledge segments, we were left to Wikipedia, which filled in the blanks quite nicely. The movie is actually based on a book that does a much more thorough job of describing Eli's backstory. The details that would have explained that 2 second shot were left out because those details are so touchy that they'd need more time than the movie could afford to show in the right way. We also learned that there is, of course, an American remake in the works, that we're sure will fixate on these more lurid details. If you've seen it and also had a major WTF moment, here's the deal... Eli is a 200 year old castrated boy. So when she says "I'm not a girl" she doesn't mean "I'm a vampire" she means, "I'm a boy." And her handler is really a pedophile who's been abusing him/her for years, and more or less in exchange for that.. erm... access... get Eli the blood.

In keeping with the aforementioned spoilerized truth of the WTF, what's with Oskar's Dad and the socks-n-sandals guy? We assumed that his father is gay or bi, and given the overtones that presumably drive the novel, this now makes sense to be the case, but we're not sure.

Comments on my blog close automatically after 20 days, or something like that (today's Sunday, tomorrow's my birthday, and I'm too old and cranky to check) to prevent Russian spam. You just gave me a good idea!: I'll update the post with a link to your thread for further discussion.

Yes, WTF indeed! Cringing against the inappropriate is honestly one of my favorite forms of horror. I'm glad the caretaker abuse wasn't in the movie, that would have crossed the line for me, made me angry, and pulled too much focus away from Eli and Oskar, IMO. I become quite infuriated at scenes of child abuse and rape. I may never get over that f@#$ing Nicole Kidman movie where she thinks that creepy little boy is her reincarnated husband and she's kissing him, bathing with him...made me angry as hell! And even if Eli is a castrated boy, I think the film's statement is that it's kind of a moot point in light of the importance of their relationship. Seems to be that way for Oskar, anyhow. I don't know, I'm gay-friendly without being gay, so I thought it was shocking and a bit interesting, but since Eli's played by a little girl anyway it bothered me about |<->| that much.

This gets into an interesting philosophical question.

Would you read the book, Dan, or is knowing the back story of Eli and his relationship with the caretaker enough to permanently turn you off?

For me, I think I could read the book, but I wouldn't want to watch it acted out. From a purely analytical perspective, I don't see what the difference is. Each is just a different expression of the same fictional events in the life of a fictional character. Nothing is "real," so why's the book OK but the movie not? Or, am I compromising my moral stance on child abuse and pedophilia by reading the book at all?

Personally, I make a distinction. There's alot of what we consider obscene that's part of life, and it is part of art's job to explore this stuff and make us question it. The book, in its original form was the expression, and I can choose to consider the words and imagine what's going on, or not. Moreover, there's nothing between me and the page. Acting it out places a medium between the original work and me, and that method of interpretation is too real. For me, it's one thing to write about an obscenity and another to see someone portray that act in the flesh. So maybe the conflict arises from our nature as visual creatures, and imagery is more powerful than a description of imagery. This understanding helps explain why it's one thing to have a description of the types of photos recovered in a pedophilia sting but illegal to print those images in the paper or on the web. The description isn't OK, but it's preferred to seeing it.

In discussing this yesterday, Jim and I came to another philosophical quandry: what you see in that two second shot isn't what you're expecting to see, so is it wrong? I say yes. Let's set aside for a moment that the scar represents the place where Eli's genitals used to be. We were led up to that point to believe that Eli is a prepubescent girl. We expect Oskar to have some curiosity about his little girlfriend-- that's normal-- and there's long been a cute little joke about children looking in their diapers or undies and saying "What's yours look like?" That's Ok, I guess- its the sort of "aww" thing grandmothers say- but if that joke then included imagery of what each kid was looking at, it becomes something very wrong. And that's where the film went off the tracks for me. Instead of showing Oskar's reaction to seeing his little GF naked, we get a shot of what he sees. At that moment, it switches from being about and from his perspective to about and for the audience, and this member of the audience didn't need or ever want to see that.

Back to the scar itself. We didn't "see" anything but a nasty scar, so since there was nothing there (the scar representing the removal of genitals), isn't it just a big punk'd moment for everyone? "Ha ha! You thought you were going to see 12-year-old privates, and instead you saw nothing and now you're all upset about it!" I say it still doesn't matter for the reasons stated above. Still, I wonder if that would hold up in court under the "I know it when I see it" response to the definition of pornography. Is it the shot itself to be assessed in a vacuum, considering only the imagery, or is it to be assessed as part of a cohesive whole of the production, in which case it takes on added significance? I think there's a major "ick" factor to both, but the latter evaluation is more damning than the former.

Either way, it was messed up.

I agree with you completely that it is different to read molestation events rather than see them play out. I know it's not entirely logical for me to react two ways about two different artistic mediums, but you're right, the visual stimulus is more powerful in this monkey than the imagination. When you're reading something fictional depicting a scene, the words cause you to form images in your head. And the images you evoke in your own head are only as bad as you make them; you can lessen the impact of horrible events within your own mind. But when you are viewing a film or other visual medium, you are surrendering completely to the artist's depiction of events; you have no control over the images entering your brain. So when it's something I don't wanna watch, like child molestation, rape, or worse, then I suppose that's where the anger sets in. So in summary, yes, I could and would still read the book.

Pornography by definition depicts erotic behavior. Depicting genitalia doesn't fall under pornography unless arousal is depicted. And as far as the shock value, to me it was interesting to learn that about Eli but probably not necessary to the completion of the film. In the definition of "plot twist" it would be difficult to categorize that as being one, since it didn't change Oskar's relationship with Eli significantly. For example, revealing a certain person's genitalia in The Crying Game was indeed a plot twist, because it almost changed the relationship of the protagonists. So perhaps that's where your objection comes in, is that the shot wasn't entirely necessary to the film?