Very cool movie. "The Girl" (2009) should be required viewing for all film and video production students. Each shot is a creative tapestry of composition, light, and shadow. Fredrick Edfeldt's acting-for-the camera direction is inspired and Blanca Engstrom gives the perfect nuanced and underplayed performance needed to match the pace and tone of his film.
But the real star of this remarkable film is Swiss cinematographer Hoyte Van Hoytema, who has since been the Director of Photography for "Interstellar" (2014). The film is worth a second watch just to appreciate each carefully composed shot. I've never seen anyone do it better, even breaking the 180 rule several times in the service of underscoring the girl's increasingly disoriented drift from reality.
It is not an entirely original story. There are many of the creepy elements from "Tideland" (2005) and some from "The Little Girl Who Lives Down the Lane" (1976), but "The Girl" is much more naturalistic and gentle than those two films. It could also be considered a placid "Alice In Wonderland", subtly off-kilter with Louis Carroll's illogic replaced by the mundane but equally disturbing logic of the modern adult world.
Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
