The meaningful look exchanged between Oskar’s father and his buddy is entirely inspired by the bottle coming out, and all they need to do to upset Oskar is fill and refill their glasses. You’ve got to dig pretty deep to read a gay subtext into it.
I personally prefer the movie to the novel, as there are more things kept ambiguous in the movie, which makes the sudden shocks more powerful. I don’t think that Eli has any scruples about killing any person other than Oskar (who she forces herself not to attack when he cuts himself), but she’s definitely drawn to him because of the violence bubbling under his surface (“Scream! Scream like a pig!”). The scene where she tells him to fight back brutally against the bullies is a thing of beauty in how it shows how that she cultivates that violence, but it’s framed in a way that seems like a typical ‘be a man; defend yourself’ sort of lecture (also represented in a nice way by Mr Avila).
Yeah, I think Mr. Avila genuinely wanted him to be a man. Eli seems like that’s what she wants, but really she just wants blood. I don’t think she’s really capable of instructing him, since she’s only 12. Well, despite really being 200. Mr. Avila was a cool seeming father figure. I liked him a lot in the book–and Oskar definitely was a kid in need of some genuine guidance. And just plain understanding and compassion, which I don’t think he was going to get from Eli at any rate.
Those of you who have seen the film, was there a subtitles issue? I heard that there’s one version that’s really badly titled. Is the one on Netflix okay? I want to see it but I want to make sure I’m seeing it properly.
I’m not sure about the discs they send out, but the version on Watch it Now has the good subtitles. I would assume the discs would, as well, but you never know.
If buying the DVD, look for the words, “SUBTITLES: ENGLISH (Theatrical), SPANISH” in a box on the back of the DVD case.
Whatever you do, don’t watch the film with the English language dub. It’s terrible and for some reason is the default when you start the DVD. You have to go into Set Up and change it to the Swedish language soundtrack. Those who have only seen the film with the English language dub haven’t really seen the film that the director and the actors made.
Actually we watched it on disc from Netflix last week and based on the information in the other threads on this board it had the bad sub-titles (the one example I remember being what Hakan said in the gym… something about being trapped… which was not a very good translation?).