You
would think permissive, immigrant-welcoming Sweden wouldn’t need a customs service,
but they rather quaintly insist on upholding their own duty and controlled
substance laws. Nobody is better at detecting contraband than Tina, a not
particularly photogenic customs agent. She can literally sniff it out. To put
it more accurately, she can smell the guilt and shame that comes with law-breaking.
That is just something she has always been able to do, but a stranger will
finally explain to her why in Ali Abbasi’s Border
(trailer
here),
Sweden’s official foreign language Oscar submission, which opens this Friday in
New York and San Francisco.
Tina
leads a quiet, semi-desperate life. When not busting small time smugglers, she
visits her dementia-addled father and half-heartedly hangs with her roommate
and not-really-boyfriend, Roland, a sleazy dog-trainer. However, things are
about to get more interesting—on two fronts. When Tina busts a scummy jerk
carrying a flash-drive loaded with child pornography, she is welcomed into a
national level investigation, whose director finds her unique skill set quite
useful.
Much
to her surprise, Tina also comes face-to-face with a similarly unattractive
man, who shares her abilities. Vore is a frequent traveler, who has had more
contact with their kind. What kind would that be? That would be telling, but
considering Border is based on a
short story written by John Ajvide Lindqvist, the author of Let the Right One In, who also collaborated
on the screenplay, it is probably safe to expect something fantastical—yet presented
in a scrupulously grounded kind of way.
Tina’s
relationship with Vore is indeed strange and intense, especially when he starts
to reveal his secrets. Border throws
a bunch of myths and lore into the blender, including the Changeling legend.
Frankly, the title is a bit misleading (at least in this day and age), because
this is really not an immigration advocacy film. Of course, there is an
unambiguous message regarding tolerance, but it is almost sabotaged by the
shocking third act revelations.
Despite
the heavy makeup and facial prosthetics, Eva Melander and Eero Milonoff are
both terrific as Tina and Vore, respectively. They really dive deeply into
their characters social alienation, simmering resentment, and existential
fatalism. These are some pretty dramatic character development arcs, but they
cover them quite nimbly and convincingly. Jörgen Thorsson just oozes slime as
Roland, whereas Ann Petrén is quite the commanding and reassuring presence as
the criminal task force commander, Agneta.
This
is a quiet film, but it is still a technically impressive genre movie, starting
first and foremost with the incredible makeup designed for Tina and Vore.
Somehow Abbasi manages to fuse elements of gritty social realism with the look
and vibe of a fable-like contemporary fantasy, but some of the tougher subject
matter will make it off-limits for certain viewers. Regardless, it would pair
up quite nicely with Ivan Tverdovsky’s Zoology.
Highly recommended, Border opens this
Friday (10/26) in New York, at the IFC Center and in San Francisco, at the
Alamo Mission and the Smith San Rafael Film Center.
