I watched Border” — a Swedish film whose original title is simply Border” (Gräns). You can understand the translators, really: with the title Border,” half the audience would expect a grim movie about border guards, while the other half wouldn’t watch it at all 😉
And they’d be missing out. It’s one of the strangest and most honest things I’ve seen lately.
The main character works as a customs officer and can literally smell people — shame, fear, guilt. It starts out like a rather dark Scandinavian detective story, and then the film quietly, without fanfare, heads in a completely different direction — and you realize that the border” in the title isn’t about customs. It’s about where a normal” person ends and everything else begins — the body, instinct, the outsider it’s easier not to notice.
There isn’t a single beautiful face on screen, not one of the usual cinematic crutches — and yet it’s impossible to look away, every scene in the film is there for a reason. I watched it alone yesterday, then rewatched it with Nadya today, and once again became convinced – there isn’t a single unnecessary line in the film, and many only make sense after some time. Eva Melander, who is actually a pretty actress, does something absolutely incredible here, and in such makeup, too, that she’s unrecognizable.
If you like films that don’t fully explain themselves, — I highly recommend it. If not — well, you were warned by the title 😉
And yes, don’t read anything specific about the film before watching it — you’ll ruin half the experience
