DACrowe
Avenger
- Joined
- Aug 24, 2000
- Messages
- 30,765
- Reaction score
- 625
- Points
- 78
I just watched the original film for the first time since theaters in 2008.
My original assessment stands in that it is a very good, yet somewhat flawed, drama about the pain of childhood loneliness, isolation...and vampires.
Honestly, rewatching it made me appreciate the remake more. Not because I thought the remake was better, it is just there was such reverence paid to the original on the Internet community as if it was the best film ever made and to like an American adaptation of the book was a statement or declaration of ignorance and egocentrism.
The movie is great, but Matt Reeves film is far from a shot-by-shot remake as made out. I actually appreciated the locals or townies more on seeing this, but I still do not care for that subplot as a whole.
What interests me is what makes the original stand out is why I like its overall atmosphere and tone better...even though my favorite parts of the remake were the ones that radically departed from that moody and freezing impression.
The entire film is shot in long, beautifully bleak wide shots, some of which tell an entire scene in no more than a few shots. Only when Eli and Oskar are together does the camera move into close-up or singular focus. The first half of the film benefits from this greatly with such a sense of longing and emptiness in the cold. Even the long opening shot of snow in quiet sets a mood that, to pardon the pun, chills to the bone.
Yet, some of the best things of the American version is material that sifts through that. Instead of beginning slowly with a creeping Owen, the Reeves film memorably opens with an entirely suspenseful and unnerving ambulance ride and the hint of true disturbing violence having been committed. The use of somewhat religious sounding music in the snowy night with murmurs of a little girl before an apparent suicide suggest dark undertones, indeed. A complete departure from what made the overall tone of the first so great.
I also feel that this causes the early scenes between Eli and Oskar in the original to feel more natural. They breathe in the wide space when they play with a rubic's cube or she breaks Oskar's heart about not playing with him. Albeit, I thought the Pac-Man scene with Owen and Abby was great and his comforting her after throwing up (and her awkward reaction to his general awkwardness was better.
However, as the film moves on I feel the more linear pace of the remake creates more tension and a sense of rising action. And surprisingly, I think that helped their relationship. Abby visiting Owen's bedroom and sleeping over after the Father's death was more touching. The grimness of the detective's murder was more fully realized with Owen looking into his eyes as he shuts the door--thus allowing his confusion of what has transpired to grow under the skin of him and the audience as Abby covered in blood hugs him and we're left in a touching sense.
It's just it makes me really appreciate they are both great films and bring something different to the table that is a credible interpretation to enjoy. There are some things both definitively do better. In my opinion, the cruelty of the bullies and the tragedy of the Father/Hakan (as well as his grizzly murders) are far and away superior in the remake. There is a genuine sadness and tenderness to when Abby kills Richard Jenkins not in the original.
On the other hand the entire last 10 minutes are so perfect in the original, it just leaves the remake feeling like--A for effort. But c'mon, the swimming pool scene is so powerfully shot and simply executed in the original; and yet, it becomes the most iconic image(s) of the film. And the build up due to its slower, more methodical pace of the morse code subplot ending on the train is thusly more satisfying--and IMO happier. There is a sense of more tragedy for Owen in the remake which leaves the ending not quite as satisfying. Oskar is so screwed up this terrible fate is probably the best he's going to get.
So, they both have their own merits and I don't think it has to be one or the other and that neither is "unnecessary."
I give them both an 8.5/10. They both have problems (the biggest in both stemming from CGI!) but they're wonderful films.
My original assessment stands in that it is a very good, yet somewhat flawed, drama about the pain of childhood loneliness, isolation...and vampires.
Honestly, rewatching it made me appreciate the remake more. Not because I thought the remake was better, it is just there was such reverence paid to the original on the Internet community as if it was the best film ever made and to like an American adaptation of the book was a statement or declaration of ignorance and egocentrism.
The movie is great, but Matt Reeves film is far from a shot-by-shot remake as made out. I actually appreciated the locals or townies more on seeing this, but I still do not care for that subplot as a whole.
What interests me is what makes the original stand out is why I like its overall atmosphere and tone better...even though my favorite parts of the remake were the ones that radically departed from that moody and freezing impression.
The entire film is shot in long, beautifully bleak wide shots, some of which tell an entire scene in no more than a few shots. Only when Eli and Oskar are together does the camera move into close-up or singular focus. The first half of the film benefits from this greatly with such a sense of longing and emptiness in the cold. Even the long opening shot of snow in quiet sets a mood that, to pardon the pun, chills to the bone.
Yet, some of the best things of the American version is material that sifts through that. Instead of beginning slowly with a creeping Owen, the Reeves film memorably opens with an entirely suspenseful and unnerving ambulance ride and the hint of true disturbing violence having been committed. The use of somewhat religious sounding music in the snowy night with murmurs of a little girl before an apparent suicide suggest dark undertones, indeed. A complete departure from what made the overall tone of the first so great.
I also feel that this causes the early scenes between Eli and Oskar in the original to feel more natural. They breathe in the wide space when they play with a rubic's cube or she breaks Oskar's heart about not playing with him. Albeit, I thought the Pac-Man scene with Owen and Abby was great and his comforting her after throwing up (and her awkward reaction to his general awkwardness was better.
However, as the film moves on I feel the more linear pace of the remake creates more tension and a sense of rising action. And surprisingly, I think that helped their relationship. Abby visiting Owen's bedroom and sleeping over after the Father's death was more touching. The grimness of the detective's murder was more fully realized with Owen looking into his eyes as he shuts the door--thus allowing his confusion of what has transpired to grow under the skin of him and the audience as Abby covered in blood hugs him and we're left in a touching sense.
It's just it makes me really appreciate they are both great films and bring something different to the table that is a credible interpretation to enjoy. There are some things both definitively do better. In my opinion, the cruelty of the bullies and the tragedy of the Father/Hakan (as well as his grizzly murders) are far and away superior in the remake. There is a genuine sadness and tenderness to when Abby kills Richard Jenkins not in the original.
On the other hand the entire last 10 minutes are so perfect in the original, it just leaves the remake feeling like--A for effort. But c'mon, the swimming pool scene is so powerfully shot and simply executed in the original; and yet, it becomes the most iconic image(s) of the film. And the build up due to its slower, more methodical pace of the morse code subplot ending on the train is thusly more satisfying--and IMO happier. There is a sense of more tragedy for Owen in the remake which leaves the ending not quite as satisfying. Oskar is so screwed up this terrible fate is probably the best he's going to get.
So, they both have their own merits and I don't think it has to be one or the other and that neither is "unnecessary."
I give them both an 8.5/10. They both have problems (the biggest in both stemming from CGI!) but they're wonderful films.
But it seems very unlikely. Her life is all about leaving behind those she cares about. She can't even remember when her birthday is.
t:
