Cinematic Comparison: Nordic Realism vs. American Esthetics

Cinematic Frontiers – Cronenberg and the Dual Visions of Let Me In

Yesterday in Italian theaters, two high-impact films were released; a rare occasion compared to the stagnant situation of recent months in theaters or that of recent years in world cinematography. The first film is the latest by David Cronenberg, A Dangerous Method, a European and Canadian production, a film that no longer has much to do with the cinematographic postmodernism of the second half of the twentieth century through which the Canadian filmmaker managed to impose himself on the general public and film scholars everywhere, but rather places itself on the line undertaken in recent times starting from History of Violence (2005) of contemporary psychological drama—however extremely singular—and within a path that is entirely original as well as organic. On the other hand, its author, as a consolidated avant-garde filmmaker of the last century, falls today in everyone's eyes into the category of the great authors of the history of cinema and is therefore destined to attract the large public, including many who do not know Cronenberg's historical cinema, to the point of deserving the enormous Screen 1s of many multiplexes (Ref. 1).

The second film, which we will discuss here and which is destined for much smaller theaters, is Blood Story—an Italian title inexplicably connected to the original Let Me In (Ref. 2)—by Matt Reeves: an Anglo-American production based on John Ajvide Lindqvist’s novel Let the Right One In, and a remake of the Swedish film of the same name, winner in 2008 of the award for best film at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York. Of the European cinematographic tradition, and especially of the Northern European one, the film certainly presents atmospheres and environments, which are mediated with confidence and commitment in the American setting of New Mexico, of which, however, very little continues to be inferred during the viewing, interspersed with well-contextualized clichés and references and citations to great classics, all to be identified and discovered, some even very evident. This is in line with the Swedish original of 2008, of which the scenes are sometimes retraced one after the other; in the sense that the operation is carried out in a stylistic and original key from the point of view of the composition of the shots and not in an imitative one, and of which a strong stylistic mark can be considered the games of focus from which the contrasted relationship between minimal portions in the foreground and very long background fields arises.

The mediation toward the American public, in complete respect of the original from which considerable attention to European cinema is inferred, is an operation that can be said to be quite successful. In particular, compared to the cold, gloomy, and low-contrast lights, as well as drastically desaturated with neon atmospheres, according to the twentieth-century aesthetics of Northern European cinematography of the first film, we find in the second a chromatic balance and contrasts that are anything but obvious and rather fascinating from the point of view of the image, which brings the scenes also in this sense closer to the Hitchcockian masterpiece of the window voyeur (Rear Window, 1954)—a reference absolutely absent in the Swedish film—to which millions of films in the history of cinematography will continue to be inspired. It should be noted, on the other hand, that even the typically Northern European cold lights are the result of an equally stylistic operation and construction of the scene, even if placed on the line of the realistic rendering of the environments. Furthermore, to the generally mostly restricted fields, with incisive and eloquent close-ups and details of the first film, is opposed the range of possible and well-juxtaposed shots of the second, with close-ups that are nonetheless singular, less evident and within the technical-narrative continuity.

The story is set in 1983 and even if it presents rather contemporary environments and costumes, the second version today in theaters presents precise references to the eighties, albeit American, in line with the transposition, from President Reagan to the musical band Kiss. While the first film seems to literally emerge from the popular realism of the seventies, also regarding the clothing of the characters.

On the other hand, the soundtrack and its modes—the sound setting of the first film is made of contrasts and based on the differentiation of moods—as much as that of the second, instead, presents a more transparent and accommodating style; just as, furthermore, while the young female protagonist of the Swedish film recalls the drug-addicted Babsy of the Berlin Zoo (Christiane F. - Wir Kinder vom Bahnhof Zoo, 1981) for her marked as well as singular features of a realistic character, the girl in the American film recalls rather Ornella Muti, for her features marked by objective beauty of a singular character; the face of the young male protagonist, on the other hand, presents marked as well as singular characters in the second film, just as in the first he reflects typical Swedish and Northern European characters in the most angelic version.

The second film is, however, more articulated from a narrative point of view, that is, it presents different points of view and an articulation of the chronological sense starting two weeks after the narrated story and presenting flashbacks; while the first takes place from the point of view of the child protagonist (Ref. 3). Absolutely well juxtaposed to the technical-narrative continuity, moreover, in the second film, are the scenes realized completely in digital, at high speed, based on the jolts of unnatural movements of an entirely artificial figure, realized to represent, always rather in the distance, with medium-shot framing, the attacks of the vampire toward its victims. After all, every aesthetic aspect related to make-up and effects, otherwise rather discrete and singular, is decidedly convincing and realistic in the American film as in the first Swedish one, which, with contained costs and being originally European, are not found.

Existential solitude is the theme of the film in both cases, the most evident element of which is the absence of mother and father figures, which is even more accentuated in the second film in which only parts of the body and never the face of the mother are shown, in step with the romantic texture of a love story destined to last a lifetime. Finally, the mixture of genres that occurs in this film, in both versions and in light of the characteristics exposed, where the unreal connotations are so well interposed with the moods and characteristics of reality, focusing on the reflection of the same and its limits, is the most useful and interesting thing that cinematography can offer by exploiting its means, today as always. [S. Bacon / R. Daniele]

English References (Citations)

1. Official Site: A Dangerous Method – adangerousmethod-themovie.com

2. Official Site: Let Me In – letmein-movie.com

3. Comparative Analysis: "The 5 Biggest Differences Between Let Me In and Let The Right One In," CinemaBlend. (Selected for its objective focus on technical differences rather than regional bias).