Ok, I am waaayyy behind in my reviews, but I'm pushing this review to the top of my list because it's a film that is unlike anything I've seen before. I'm honestly not sure I'd recommend going in knowing nothing about it because it might freak some viewers out. I'll write a quick, relatively spoiler-free synopsis for those who want a basic summary and the a more detailed review below for those who want to know what the fuck this movie it actually about.
So, Border is a Swedish film directed by Ali Abbasi and written by John Ajvide Lindqvist who also wrote Let the Right One In and Let Me In. The film centers on Tina (Eva Melander), a security guard who works at the Swedish border agency. Tina has an unusually strong sense of smell--she can literally sniff out guilt and shame--which helps her detect contraband. Tina also has facial deformities which give her a heavy brow and rough, masculine features. Despite this, she is respected at her job, has a live-in boyfriend (whom she doesn't have sex with and who is kind of a deadbeat, but keeps her company) and has a good relationship with her father, whom appears to be in the early stages of Alzheimers. In short, life is ok, though not great, for Tina.
But then one day and man passes through customs who has the exact same facial features as Tina--she is shocked and fascinated to meet a person who looks like her. He introduces himself as Vore (played by Eero Milonoff) and is amused by Tina's shock. Vore reveals that he is a traveler staying at a nearby hostel, and Tina invites him to stay at her guesthouse (much to the chagrin of her boyfriend). Vore and Tina grow closer and discover similarities beyond their facial features...
Now, if you want to go in with a relatively blank slate, stop reading now! But please be aware that there is VERY explicit sexual content in this film, so don't bring Grandma to see it, mmmkay?
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Spoilers ahead!
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Ok, so Vore reveals to Tina that they are not human, but in fact belong to a nearly extinct race of trolls. Yup, trolls. Like, the kind that live under bridges. In the world of Border, trolls have heavy facial features, eat insects, love the outdoors, are born with tails, and attract lightning (both Vore and Tina have been struck by lightning as children and have scars on their lower backs where their tails have been removed). Tina is, of course, shocked and incredibly upset. After all, her father never told her this information. She was raised to believe that she had a chromosomal issue, which also meant she could never have children.
Uh, turns out, she can...just not in the way you would expect. In an earlier scene at customs, Tina tells a fellow security guard that Vore is definitely hiding something. After he examines Vore privately, the security guard tells Tina that *she* should have been the one to examine Vore, as he has a vagina instead of a penis. Well, during the inevitable love scene between Vore and Tina, more secrets about her body are revealed: it turns out that when she is aroused, she grows a penis (and we get to see this happen in full, technicolor glory. There was an elderly woman sitting in front of me in the theatre who couldn't stop laughing during this scene). We learn more about the reproductive lives of trolls when Vore births what appears to be a troll baby, but is actually an unfertilized egg that just *looks* like a troll baby.
Now, if all this makes you think "this movie sounds terrible and ridiculous", you'd be 100% WRONG. Border is...well, is it a great movie? I don't know. It has a very upsetting and triggering subplot involving a child pornography bust that Tina is working on at her job. Vore also hides things from Tina and manipulates her, so this isn't exactly an ugly ducklings find true love story either. In fact, Border manages to upend your expectations at every turn. Wherever you think it's going, it's not. And that can be upsetting when you think it's going in one direction and then veers sharply in another direction.
But the sheer creativity and fantasy of Border, as well as the devastating, but beautiful arc of Tina's self-discovery, pushes the film into the realm of remarkable, at least for me. The film is about an "ugly" woman who finds out that not only is she not a freak, she's in fact something stronger and "better" (as Vore states) than human. But that doesn't make life any easier for her. Rare is it to see a film where an ugly duckling doesn't transform into a beautiful swan, but instead finds a sense of dignity and self-acceptance right where she is. Is Border a love story? Yes--but not between Vore and Tina. It's a love story between an empathic, open-minded viewer and Tina, and one of the best of the year so far.
Grade: A
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