Director Tomas Alfredson’s Let the Right One In has been the talk of the film-festival circuit for months—the “Swedish vampire movie” that has transfixed audiences with its keenly attenuated evocation of adolescent loneliness and budding first love in the apartment blocks of suburban Stockholm, framed around a latter-day reinvention of the vampire myth. Its two central characters, Oskar (Kare Hedebrant) and his counterpart Eli (Lina Leandersson), both played by remarkable young actors in their first movie, are a bullied and alienated 12-year-old boy and the mysterious dark-haired girl who only appears at night, and warns that she is not at all what she may seem.

Adapted by screenwriter John Ajvide Lindqvist from his novel, the film already is set for an American remake, at the hands of Cloverfield director Matt Reeves. It’s hard to imagine anything Hollywood capturing the unsettling stillness of Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematography, or the delicate, sad tone that Alfredson establishes, which makes the inevitable flashes of carnage all the more powerful and, yet, all resolves in a nearly transcendent poignance.

I caught up with Alfredson, who was in Stockholm, a couple of days before the film’s US opening.

What were you thinking about when you approached the material?

Alfredson: The book is like 400 pages, so we had to leave a lot of things out. I tried to concentrate on the love story, because I felt that was the most moving part of it. I haven’t made any horror films before, so everything was quite new to me. So my way to come into this material was coming in from telling a love story.

That’s a good thing you were fresh to it.

Alfredson: Yeah, maybe.

We’ve all seen these stories before, it’s how you find original ways to reinterpret them. I thought you found some subtle ways to do that. For instance, when Eli comes into Oskar’s house without following proper vampire etiquette, because Oskar insists on seeing what happens. And then she starts hemorrhaging through her skin. It’s like this huge gesture of affection.

Alfredson: That’s also an invention from John. This is obviously some revolutionary thing in the vampire world. That was just one of those bleeding things, among the others.

What was it about the book that made you think it could be a film?

Alfredson: The very unsentimental approach to it was the most heartbreaking part of it, and the part that really shook me when I read it. It’s so sentimental by not being sentimental. And then it is of course it is a very unique and original approach with these kind of supernatural things and the very natural things. This original blend, for me it was quite new.

The supernatural seeps in very gradually …

Alfredson: The big horror for me was to make it work. To believe in this landscape, this atmosphere, and to make this deal with the audience: This really could happen in your suburb.

The cinematography was amazing: The still, icy landscape. The sense of isolation. Even when people are together it feels like the wolves are lurking.

Alfredson: It’s a very typical Stockholm suburb. Sweden was kept out of the second World War, and we were very wealthy in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and we had a lot of money to do some strange building projects. They called it social engineering. The architecture is very specific for Swedes from this specific era. The look of it is very Swedish for Swedes. I also think the more specific you are, the more universal you get. I don’t understand why it is like that. I suppose that suburbia is a very good environment for making something scary. You’re very close to everyone, and everyone is there behind the curtains, but still it is very quiet.

In the city, you have your guard up. If something violent or unusual happens, it’s expected. But suburbia, that’s where all the real terror happens.

Alfredson: Or in the shower.

I read an interview that mentioned you had looked at a lot of paintings to develop your visual concept.

Alfredson: We studied a lot of Renaissance painters when we were prepping. Mostly, Hans Holbein, who was painting the royal British court n the mid-1500s. He’s using eyes in a very interesting way. Te portrayed person is not looking on the spectator, but is
looking a little beside the spectator, and that is very spooky. We also looked at Raffaello (Raphael) for the color and lighting purposes. So we used a painting by Raffaello, from the Vatican, to have a color guide. He uses gray in a very interesting way, as if it was white. Because we have so much white in the film from the snow we have to find some way to communicate all this hard white light. So he helped us a lot. If you don’t know which way to turn, you can always ask the masters.

They invented light. The young actors were remarkable. That unsentimental quality was refreshing. In so much American media, kids of a certain age only get played two ways: for their presumed innocence, or as precocious sex objects. We sentimentalize childhood only to commodify it. Your approach, not milking it, means that in the end the viewer gets hit hard emotionally, but in a very sweet way. Where did you find those kids?

Alfredson: Open castings throughout Sweden. It took nearly a year to find them. This story is very unsexualized. There is no sex in the film. It is very soothing not to have the sexual part of being a teenager. This is pure innocent young love. And that thing is also a big conflict for the vampire, because the vampire has stopped growing before he or she has become mature. That’s an important thing for Eli, the vampire, to maintain that innocent love. So she asks Oskar, or he asks him – because not everyone has noticed that Eli is a boy, a castrated boy. I don’t know if you made that conclusion but it’s suggested a couple of times in the film.

There is an ambiguity, but I didn’t quite put it all together.

Alfredson: It’s just suggested. There is a very short image of his genitals, or her genitals, that you could interpret was a castrated boy.

What were you looking for in the actors?

Alfredson: They should be mirrors for each other. And they had a strange kind of maturity. They are like two very old people. They were just 12 when we shot. Lina is like an old lady for me, like 80 years old. She could look through you. She is a reincarnation of somebody. And when we shot it I didn’t want them to read the story so each and every day they got new papers from the script… I read it aloud for them, so they didn’t have this reading style of actor. After awhile they started trying to make me say what it was all about. They put the screen together in their heads during the shooting process. They’re really, really intelligent people, those two.

Have they continued acting?

Alfredson: No. I want them not to be showbiz kids,. We’ve kept them out from the media. They have made not a single interview so far.

What do you think about the American remake that has been announced?

Alfredson: It’s heartbreaking when you have worked on something for several years and put a lot of love into it and have someone else use the same material. At the same time, they make Hamlet all the time. But I cannot say that this is mine. They have the book and they are going to do a re-adaptation from the book, and not remaking they film. Maybe these feelings disappear after awhile. Maybe this guy is very talented and has unique ideas?

He shot Cloverfield, which was a dud. YouTube horror. But that’s my knee-jerk reaction. Were you also disappointed not to have the film put forward as Sweden’s entry for the foreign film Oscar?

Alfredson: We have had such big international success with this film, I think maybe we could have had a greater chance if they had the courage to choose us.

Were people surprised you directed this? You’re better known for comedy.

Alfredson: I suppose so, but at the same time I have for a Swede a slow style…

Congratulations on your Méliès d’Or award for best European fantastic film. How many prizes has the film won?

Alfredson: For this film, it’s like 15 or something.

Maybe you don’t need an Oscar!

Also posted at Paste online.