Movie Review: Border

Border *** ½ / *****

Directed by: Ali Abbasi.

Written by: Ali Abbasi & Isabella Eklof & John Ajvide Lindqvist based on the short story by Lindqvist.

Starring: Eva Melander (Tina), Ero Milonoff (Vore), Jorgen Thorsson (Roland), Ann Petren (Agneta), Sten Ljunggren (Tina’s Father).

 

A warning before I start the review proper of Ali Abbasi’s Border – this is a very strange film, and one that will probably work best if you go into it completely cold. It works much better in the early scenes of the film, when you’re trying to figure out what the hell is going on, then it does later in the movie, when it explains everything. Quite frankly, the explanation of what is happening and why is ridiculous – but then again, it’s probably just about the only thing that could explain what leads up to it. It is an extremely odd film – and for that I admire it, despite my misgivings about where it seemingly ends up – which seem to be growing the more I think about the film. Okay, so you’ve been warned – and while I’ll try and stay away from spoilers, it’s hard to tell what exactly is a spoiler, and what isn’t in Border.

 

Anyway, the film stars Eva Melander as Tina – a woman who works as a border agent in Sweden, who has an uncanny ability to sniff out – literally – when people are hiding something. This isn’t just stuff like drugs – she isn’t a drug sniffing dog – but she can tell their emotional state, and when therefore, when they’re hiding just about anything. Her co-workers may admire her ability, but they’re still off put by her – the constant sniffing, her brusque manner, and quite frankly her looks. While she is clearly all there mentally – she looks, well, different, from everyone else. She doesn’t have much of a social life either – she lives with a man who raises dogs, but they are not romantic in any way. There are a few other, slightly more reserved friendships (that seem to be there basically for plot) – and an aging father in a retirement home, whose memory is fading. Then one day at her job she meets Vore (Ero Milonoff) – and can tell he is hiding something, although they cannot find it on him – even after going through, well, everything. He flirts with her – and, well, it’s clear that whatever Tina has that effects the way she looks, Vore has the same thing. It isn’t long before he has moved into her guest house, on her remote forest property – much to Roland’s chagrin. Her abilities also attract the attention of the police, who want her help to track down a child pornography ring.

 

Most of what happens aside from the relationship between Tina and Vore is a distraction though – and not really necessary ones. It’s clear from their first interaction that there is something between them – that the pair are drawn to each other. Tina senses, not incorrectly, that Vore knows things that she doesn’t – and she wants to find out what those things are. Whereas Tina is painfully shy and awkward, and takes every sideways glance, or half overheard comment to heart – Vore doesn’t seem to notice, or care, what people around him think.

 

The opening scenes in Border are the best – when director Ali Abbasi is detailing Tina’s regular life, and she and Vore are (almost literally) sniffing each other out. The makeup work done to the two lead actors is impressive – the type of work that gets a small foreign film like this an Oscar nomination for Best Makeup (Sweden also submitted the film – which won the Un Certain Regard prize at Cannes for Best Foreign Language Film – good luck with that one!). As the film moves along, it becomes both more of a fairytale of sorts, and a police procedural. You may very well wonder why Abbasi has decided to tell two entirely separate plots in the movie – but he has a point, and unfortunately, it’s more conventional than I would prefer.

 

Yet Border is such a strange film, and offers so much that is unconventional, that perhaps the more conventional ending and storytelling in the third act is too be expected. There is an even more daring, less conventional film, lurking somewhere in Border than this is – and that’s the film I would have loved to see. But perhaps, that would all just be too weird.