#28 - Let the Right One In (Låt den rätte komma in)

Let the Right One In is the story of Oskar, a young misfit living in a town in Sweden who is driven by bullying to thoughts of revenge.  Oskar finally finds meaning in his life when he is befriended by Eli, a young girl who also happens to be the vampire whose lust for blood is behind the town's recent spate of bizarre murders.  Together, the two of them try to navigate a confusing and lonely world ravaged by the forces of love and death.

Let the Right One In is a quietly intense film, with a narrow enough scope to allow us to go deep into its complex issues.  It is shot largely in darkness, with few bright colors, echoing the bleak solitude of its characters and setting.  And yet every frame is gorgeous and perfectly aligned - it is the kind of film that truly justifies the existence of cameras.  While violent, it is never gory or gratuitous; while suspenseful, it does not aim to be frightening.  Its supernatural elements belie the film's true center, which is the connection forged between two of the people that the rest of the world forgot.

#27: Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

In the height of the Cold War, tensions run high and eventually something snaps.  Deeply unstable General Jack D. Ripper gives the order to the US Air Force to drop the hydrogen bomb on Russian targets, setting off a frenzied chain of events as both the United States and the USSR realize the horror of their impending doom through mutually assured destruction.  Meanwhile, the intrepid crew of one B-52 aircraft, under the command of Major T.J. "King" Kong, head toward their target, determined to serve their country despite any setbacks.

Director Stanley Kubrick originally planned to create a serious, sober adaptation of the Cold War thriller novel Red Alert, but while putting together plans to make the film began to see through to the absurdity inherent in the nuclear scare, and instead created the bizarre, off-the-wall satire that is Dr. Strangelove.  Kubrick was living in England at the time, and the influence of British comedy shows through clearly, albeit dissolved somewhat in American cultural themes.  Dr. Strangelove - except for "King" Kong's perfect, climactic exit near the end of the film - is a movie without punchlines, just an ever-creeping horror that continually builds even as the credits roll.

Oh, and it's funny, too.  The acting (by Peter Sellers in three roles including the titular mad scientist, Slim Pickens as Major Kong the Texan, George C. Scott as General Buck Turgidson, and a myriad of other skilled actors playing characters with punnish names) is spot-on and just barely over-the-top, not ridiculous enough to go flat.  The script's inside jokes and one-liners are perfectly timed.  And somehow in showing the extent of the madness that results from Armageddon, Kubrick brings the end of the world down to a level where it can be ridiculed.

I imagine that as a member of Gen Y, and someone who hasn't watched a great deal of war movies, to some extent the jokes went over my head.  Dr. Strangelove does still work today as a comedy but only when observed from a historical context; while we still see this trigger-happy paranoia in the post-9/11 world, schoolchildren are no longer watching 'duck and cover' videos, Europe is no longer a foreign wilderness, and most people alive today don't remember World War II.  Yet Kubrick is an artist - and even at those moments when the tension goes slack (because we've all come out on the other end of the Cold War) this film can be enjoyed for the beauty of its shots, the use of light and shadow, and the way Kubrick and his actors work together to portray the darkest depths of the human psyche.

...No, really, this is a comedy, I promise!

#26: My Neighbor Totoro (Tonari no Totoro)

In mid-20th-century Japan, young sisters Satsuki and Mei Kusakabe, along with their professor father, move into a new house in the country near the hospital where their mother is recovering from a long-term illness.  The house has been uninhabited for years, and as Satsuki and Mei explore their new home and the surrounding forest and fields they discover that the area is inhabited by several woodland spirits.  My Neighbor Totoro follows the two girls as they settle in to their rural home and befriend the spirits of the forest.

My Neighbor Totoro was one of Hayao Miyazaki's first productions for Studio Ghibli, the start of a long and successful career in creating gorgeous animated films that explore the mythology of Japan.  Totoro is the epitome of this genre.  Its subtle and quiet form of storytelling lets the tale and its characters unfold slowly in front of our eyes, at times delving very deep into its emotional center and at other times utterly light and carefree.  The whimsical animation is a trip back to childhood, when the line between reality and imagination is arbitrary and unimportant, and the simplest things in the world are full of wonder and awe.

With that said, it does take a while to unfold, and will require patience on the part of adult viewers for about forty minutes of childlike antics before the real magic starts to happen.  It is definitely a story with a slow fuse, if you are willing to accept this.  My only real complaint is related to the English dub, which as far as these things go is almost entirely excellent.  It rejects the general trend of early anime dubs to stamp out all references to Japanese culture, preserving everything (names, locations, orthography, superstitions) except a couple instances of Buddhist prayer and referring to what I could easily see was mochi as 'cake'.  However the title and ending themes are abysmal - I cringed.  Otherwise this is yet another wonderful work of art from Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli.