Eli, to me, represents an extreme on the spectra of both violence and marginalization; she’s sort of a distillation of everything that’s wrong with the society in which Oskar lives. We are asked by the film/novel if we can distinguish between her basic, animalistic need and the calculated, mindless cruelty of the bullies. (One of my favorite lines is when she begs Oskar, “Be me a little.”) I think that in the end, we can and generally do choose to forgive her, which puts us in the tricky place of condoning murder of innocent people. The book goes more into how disturbed and frightened Oskar feels when he realizes that Eli is a vampire, which I think realistically complicates his relationship with her particular violence, but the movie definitely does an excellent job of capturing the ambivalent compassion that Oskar and, by extension, we feel towards Eli.

Sorry, that was really rambling – I’m sleepy right now. But I’m glad you’ve seen the movie, and clearly appreciated it! It’s great to discuss it with someone.

from the opening scene that is clumsy and therefore so much more brutish, blood rushing from a bound kill, to the scene where Oskar finally defends himself on his field trip, a cold cold morning where he attacks his attacker.

these stand out as being almost methodical – compared to an animalistic need-urge of the vampire. as an audience member i felt compassion, an almost forgiving of the undead as she is what she is, and she cannot be that which is not

an excellent movie, i have yet to read the book, and as you, i doubt the viscosity of a hollywood production. the grudge movies were the scariest i’ve ever seen, but with sarah michelle gellar they seem very domesticated