Opening Imagery
The film opens with Oskar holding a knife and threatening some unseen, imaginary foe, bringing to mind the classic “are you talking to me” scene with Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver. Suddenly, Oskar goes from threatening to outright attack mode, driving the blade of the knife into a tree. It will turn out the very precise language he uses in this scene is a repetition of the very same insults directed toward him by the trio of bullies who make his life miserable. And so the film opens on a note of extreme irony as the bullying by the kids is succeeding only in making a wannabe bully out of Oskar. Within him at this point is incarnated both the victim and the future victimizer he is destined to become.
Eli’s Advice
In response to a scar on his face made by a vicious attack by one of the toadies working in the service of Oskar’s main bully, Eli offers the advice that has come with a life lived over the course of centuries: hit them back hard than you dare. Eventually—his self-confidence upgraded as a result of his relationship with Eli—Oskar does just that in what is essentially an even more vicious repetition of the act which caused the injury to his face. The advice turns out to be ironically dualistic: fighting back does tame the bullies who actually have been making Oskar’s life miserable, but it also has the effect of instigating the ringleader’s old brother to up the ante which almost costs Oskar his life.
The Making of a Serial Killer
Further intensifying the above ironies is that out of all the people involved in the bullying aspect of the movie, it not the those who have bullied Oskar who will go on to have a career as a serial killer. If we judge the future that awaits Oskar by what we know about the person he has replaced—Hakan—then the job of keeping Eli supplied with fresh blood will eventually be handed over to Oskar.
The Bullied Bully
The element of irony may be arguable relative to the fact that the leader of the trio who daily takes great pleasure in humiliating Oskar is situated as being on the receiving end of such treatment. The conventional wisdom and consensus seem to take the perspective that the person who is bullied tends to remain a victim throughout life. Countless school shootings perpetrated by students whose violent retribution was discovered to be stimulated by persistent bullying would seem to contradict this assumption and, indeed, just as Oskar’s experiences are training him to become a bully, so it is made abundantly clear that the kid deriving the most enjoyment from bullying him has himself been a victim inside his own home. Whether it is actually ironic that a victim of bullying becomes a bully is, as indicated, statistically arguable, but it certainly remains so from a psychological perspective.
Tween Romance
When viewed from the perspective of what likely is in store for Eli and Oskar in the distant future, the entire thing is an exercise in grotesque irony. It is not going off the rails to presume that Oskar is destined at some point in the distant future to become just as pathetic a figure as Hakan. This is Eli’s modus operandi. She is presented as being genuinely disturbed by having to kill in order to get blood, but let’s not also forget that she is likely to draw much more attention by doing the killing herself. (Consider that Hakan is never caught in the act despite taking far more time and engaging in much riskier behavior than Eli’s relatively furtive murder beneath the bridge.) She may be sickened by killing, but she also wants to push that job off onto her submissive Renfields. The story of Eli and Oskar is presented very much within the cinematic tropes of tween romance, but remember where it eventually winds up: a sick master/slave relationship with heavy overtones of pedophilia, since Eli is not technically a child.
