Let the Right One in - the Live Blog!

Kicking off: Okay then. First time for a live-blog on The Buddha Smiled. I keep meaning to try this, and should have really done this before, but hey, better late than never. Starting out with Swedish vampire horror movie, “Låt den rätte komma in” (or "Let the Right One In", which was the title under which it was released in English markets) may sound unorthodox, especially since I tend to focus on Bollywood on this site, but hey – why do things by the book? You can read a short bio on the movie here, but otherwise, let’s just say that its a 2008 Swedish film adaptation of a vampire horror novel of the same name, written by John Ajvide Lindqvist. So – here goes nothing!

Menu & Set up: This has a pretty creepy sounding soundtrack. Loving the close up of falling snowflakes though....time to hit Play!

01:20 min: I want a name with strange Scandinavian characters in it too. Maybe I should rename this blog, ”The Büddhå Smiled".

06:53 min: Okay, so within five minutes we’ve established the Oskar, the lead character, is a bit of a school misfit, who reads creepy books that allow him to decipher forensic evidence and also gets bullied around a little in school. New neighbours in the apartment / housing complex, but is it just me who would find it odd that people moving into a new place would choose to board up windows? It’s like, HELLO! Your new neighbours aren’t the Joneses, they’re bloodsucking ghouls who are afraid of the sunlight. Also – they moved in after dark, and live in Sweden, a country clearly reknowned for long sunlit hours. Duh.

15:37 min: ”A person who kills children is certainly capable of taking the subway two stations. Or walking a mile.” This is clearly why child slayers are threatening - they’re able to use public transport.

16:39 min: Okay, this kid is officially weird. His parents are divorced, which may explain some of it, or it could be a lack of sunlight, but seriously, most pre-teens collect stamps or seashells, not newspaper clippings relating to murders, massacres, genocides, violent crime and gang wars. Also, why can he not get a normal haircut?

27:59 min: Obviously its a good idea to be murdering people in areas with heavy snowfall. A good flurry covers your tracks, and you can use your sled to move the body through the forests.

28:22 min: Gaah – I hate vampires! Not only are they blessed with eerie good looks, immortal life and an incredible sense of personal style (have you ever seen a badly dressed vampire?) but apparently they’re also blessed with great analytical thinking capability. Atleast, this vampire does – she solves Oskar’s Rubik’s cube and leaves it out in the courtyard for him.

28:45 min: On second thoughts, this vampire girl child is probably the first one I’ve met with absolutely no sense of personal style. And what is with those hideous jumpers? Maybe its because she’s pre-teen? Nah – if you’ve been alive for that long, you’ve had enough time to develop a fashion sense. Must introduce her to Kirsten Dunst from Interview with a Vampire to help this one realise that just because you're one of the living dead and a child, there's no reason you can't dress well.

36:24 min: Vampire girl tells bullied boy who’s been recently flagellated by schoolmates to hit back. Perfect. This is why we hate vampires – they screw up with the natural order of society. Imagine if everyone started hitting back. What would happen to the world? And more importantly, who would the poor schoolyard bullies pick on?!

41:43 min: Someone needs to tell Oskar’s dad that wear high-waisted faded denim jeans with a grey Christmas sweater TUCKED IN is never going to be a good look. No wonder Oskar’s mom divorced him, if that’s his idea of casual wear. Which is a shame, really, because he's pretty good-looking. But there's no accounting for taste, now, is there?

44:04 min: Ugly middle-aged man standing at gym window watching teenaged Swedish boys in gym kit playing basketball, and nobody’s calling child services and the police? What, so perving on teenage boys is legal and normal in Sweden?

46:50 min: Vampire child’s servant (?) defaces himself with acid to avoid detection and being traced back to Eli (said vampire child) And people complain that good help is hard to find even today. Bah, humbug.

53:20 min: So vampire child’s help is dead, she’s now climbing into bed with Oskar and its all getting a little weird. Are Swedes allowed to show pre-teen loving?!

56:41 min: And I thought I had relationship issues. Imagine dating a vampire.

1hr, 05:43 min: Note to self; the next time I’m dating a vampire, remind me not to suggest mixing blood as a sign of pre-teen fealty. The situation is unlikely to end well.

1hr, 20:45 min: Do all Swedish moms wear Ikea print gowns to bed?

1hr, 21:52 min: Vampires self-combust in sunlight. Important to remember the next time I’m dating one.

1hr, 24:21 min: True love is forcing yourself into houses you’re not invited into as a vampire, so that you can bleed from your eyes and ears. That pop! sound when your eardrums go is also really nice. Unrelatedly, why does the sight of a bleeding vampire give me cravings for aloo ka paraatha and bhare mirch ka achaar?

1 hr, 26:28 min: This movie’s obviously set in the late 70’s. Nobody would dare own a TV set quite that hideous today. And there I was thinking that the random decor was just how they rolled in Sweden (all that Ikea influence, you know). So I might as well also give up my fantasies of moving to Sweden, which this movie had led me to believe was the kind of place where I could wear brown mid-calf boots and not be beaten up in the streets for looking too “alternative” (read gay). Maybe I shouldn’t be so hard on Oskar’s hairstyle as well, then. On second thoughts, scratch that. Even the 70's can't be an excuse for a bad hairstyle. That one will only go so far, you know.

1hr, 32:28 min: You’ve got to love a script in which the normal human, out to seek revenge on the vampire that’s killed his friend and girlfriend, is somehow the evil one, while the evil bloodsucking ghoul that self-combusts when exposed to sunlight (a bit like leech +salt = goo) is the good one. Must recommend movie to scriptwriters of Interview with a Vampire” for lessons on how to make the vampire the popular one.

1hr, 40:09 min: Oskar is being totally set up at the gym by the guys who used to bully him, and the one he whacked across the ear with a metal stick. DUDE! Suspense is not good. Will Eli, vampire girl child, be back to save him? Only if it’s a Bollywood movie; these damn Europeans don’t know how to do feel-good. (groan)

1hr, 43:37 min: I told you these damn Europeans couldn’t do feel-good. So Eli, i.e. vampire girl child, does show up and save the day, but it involves decapitation and dismemberment. Not cool, especially when random body parts end up in public swimming pools. Now you see why I have a phobia of public pools? Who knows what’s been in there?

1hr, 45:20 min: Awww. True love is carting your vampire girl child girlfriend around Swedish national railways in a cardboard box. Chho chhweet!

And that’s it? Hmmm.... not a bad movie – definitely kept me engaged, but I can’t say it was mind-blowing. I did enjoy the live blogging experience though, so I can’t really complain. The grim landscapes of Blackeberg, Sweden, with snow-covered walkways and icy pine and fir trees does seem appropriate for bloodsucking ghouls that abhor the sunlight, but I’m not a fan. Especially since everyone and every review has been going on and on about what a brilliant movie this was. That may be a slight exaggeration, methinks.

Volcanoes, Vampires, Voldemort, Vatever.

So here I am in a little (well, okay, its huge) internet cafe in little (okay, its not massive, but it ain't no village either) Yogyakarta. For the uninitiated or un-Indonesian among you, that's pronounced Joge-Ja-Karta. I think that the pronunciation was a little joke that the Javanese played on the Dutch colonisers. Everyone knows that the Dutch pronounce the "J" as a "Y", so why not mess with their minds and pronounce a "Y" as a "J"? Just to clarify, Java is NOT pronounced Yava...

Indonesia is the latest on the travel itinerary. I got into Jakarta (not Yakarta) on Friday from Bangkok. All was well when I left Bangkok Suvarnabhoomi airport (which is pronounced Su-warn-a-poom; don't ask). With a two hour layover at Kuala Lumpur, I decided to explore the wonders of the airport (not much) but found a TV screen playing CNN, and it was there that I found out that there had been two bomb blasts in Jakarta, at two luxury hotels downtown.

Groan. The last thing I wanted was to head into a war zone, or be under threat. If that was the kinda adventure I wanted I would have gone to Kashmir. Still, there wasn't much to be done about it but to just suck it up and get to Jakarta.

Jakarta Soekarno-Hatta (I don't even KNOW how that's pronounced) airport is quite unusual and exceptional in South East Asia's glitzy airport populace; it feels like something out of air travel in the 1970's; you expect people to be wearing bell-bottoms, loud floral print shirts two sizes too tight, and to be chain smoking Marlboros. Still, the airport had all the chaos and hum of people that you can expect from any self-respecting Asian airport, so it wasn't all that unsettling. After an HOUR at immigration (the queues were...challenging) I finally got out of the airport. The best thing about the airport has to be the big signs saying "Welcome to Indonesia; DEATH PENALTY FOR DRUG TRAFFICKING".

Just so that we're clear on that, you see.

So I'm outside the airport, trying to figure out whether I want to head into Jakarta city (my trusty Lonely Planet told me that the city popularly called the Big Durian wasn't great on culture or pretty things to see, but was great for chaos, mayhem and overall pandemonium.) Feeling that a city that is chaotic on a good day might be a little unbearable the day two massive bombs rocked through the business district, I grabbed a minivan to Bandung, a town about three hours away from Jakarta.

Word of advice to the uninitiated; do not take a minivan in Indonesia unless you are used to travelling in Asia by road, and definitely do not do it if you are weak of mind, spirit or bladder. Our driver seemed intent on careening headlong into the big trucks carrying metal poles all over the highway, while other cars and minivans were racing him for the privilege of doing so. Sitting at the very back of the van, I spent some time trying to calculate how much impact the three rows of human bodies in front of me could take before I got to the metal poles in the event of a collision. Sadly, I left Physics and Biology after school, so it wasn't a very enlightening time.

Anyway. I made it to Bandung at 11 pm at night, most unexpectedly in one piece, and the city looked completely comatose. Unable to find Kebonjati road (which I also struggled to find the next day in bright sunlight) I decided to follow the "Splurge" box in my Lonely Planet and ended up at the Savoy Bidakara Homann - a hotel dating from the 1910's that was redone in the art deco style sometime in the 30's. It was also a stone's throw away from the Asia Afrika Museum, which commemorates the Bandung Conference that helped establish the Non Aligned Movement during the Cold War, and most importantly, had satellite tv, hot water, and air conditioning. A night well spent, even though I ended up watching my first episode of True Blood (DUDE! Well cool, as they'd say in an American version of England...)

Trying to get to the top of the Tangkuban Perahu (big volcano close to Bandung) the next day ended in tears and a sprained ankle. Ironically, the sprain happened even before I left Bandung, so I was not too pleased. Still, I value my joints more than random Javanese volcanoes, so I decided that the best course would be to hit a bookstore and then a movie rather than try to climb rocks and scrabble across lava flows with a strapped-up ankle. Bookstores in Bandung have limited collections of English fiction, so it was either a choice of reading the Brisingr trilogy (just finished it) Danielle Steel (would throw myself into boiling lava first) or Twilight - the latest vampire craze. Having hated the movie (I actually fell asleep in it) I was sure the book would be equally stimulating. Still, beggars being choosy and all that crap.

Thankfully I found a Starbucks (though my order for a double tall sugarfree vanilla skinny latte was enough to confuse the entire team; we finally settled for a double tall vanilla non-fat latte; sugarfree is not a word they are familiar with in Indonesia, or so it would seem...) so the caffeine was enough to keep me awake.

Having a whole evening in Bandung with a sprained ankle, my first option of sitting in a dinky hotel room reading sleep inducing vampire teenage romance novels was not thrilling. I did, however, manage to figure out with my non-existent knowledge of Bahasa that Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince was out and playing. A quick trip (literally - I fell again inside the office) to the tourist information centre and I was off to watch HPATHBP in a theatre full of families, children, and mobile phones that just wouldn't stay switched off.

Random? But of course.

The next day involved an early morning train to Yogyakarta, where I spent around four hours trying to find a room. I finally settled for a hideously overpriced one in a nasty little guesthouse (they're called Losmen here). Still, it was air-conditioned, with a private little hellhole that passed for a bathroom. The owner found it fascinating that I was from India (not fascinating enough, though, to negotiate a lower room rate) and insisted on calling me "Shah Rukh Khan" and singing "Kuch Kuch Hota Hai".

Gaah. Damn you Bollywood.

I then spent yesterday being ferried around the Javanese hills in another dinky minivan (what can I say - I'm a sucker for punishment) and managed to get in the Dieng Plateau, which has some (self-admittedly) unimpressive Hindu temples, a smoking crater full of sulphur, and a lake that's the weirdest colours of blue thanks to all the minerals the volcanoes throw up.

That was followed by a trip to Borobudur, the big-ass Buddhist temple.

Wow.

Big, beautiful, serene (despite the HORDES of Indonesian families crawling all over the place, in blatant disregard of the "no climbing" signs) but still absolutely stunning. The coolest thing about it was that the hundreds of Buddha's on all four sides are each in different postures, or mudras. Totally cool. Pics to come soon too. I promise. I was expecting to be a little let-down after Angkor Wat and its glorious, massive architecture, but Borobudur was equally spectacular, if in a very different way.

Now its off to some more Javanese explorations, before hitting the beaches of Bali to chill and party for a couple of days. I'm looking forward to not doing much more than chill on a beach for a few days before returning to the mayhem that is Jakarta, and then to India, so very excited.

Watch this space.