Film Review: Border

“If You’re Different Than Others It Means You Are Better Than Them…”

Undoubtedly taking the award for one of the strangest foreign language films I have seen in a good while, Iranian-Swedish filmmaker, Ali Abbasi, writes and directs his second big screen feature, Border, a strange blend of mystery, horror and fantastical mythos based on a short story from Let the Right One In writer, John Ajvide Lindqvist, from his collection of short stories, Let the Old Dreams Die, published in 2011. Featuring Swedish actress, Eva Melander, in the leading role, Abbasi’s movie sees Melander as Tina, a customs officer whose facial and genetic deformities allow her to have a heightened sense of smell regarding guilty parties who venture into the country. Spending her spare time isolated in the middle of the woods alongside her dog obsessed on-off lover, Tina soon becomes heavily embroiled in the discovery of a child pornography ring on behalf of the local police force and simultaneously fascinated with the arrival of Eero Milonoff’s similarly disfigured, Vore, a insect loving figure of ambiguity who soon sees himself become a close companion to that of Tina who seeks to understand her true identity and the reason behind her natural yet horrifying deformities.

When looking back and admiring the horrific beauty of Tomas Alfredson’s adaptation of Let the Right One In, it’s easy to fall into the trap of heading in to Border believing that the movie may be on similar narrative ground, and whilst Abbasi’s movie does indeed flirt with ideas of folklore and particularly ambiguous mystical elements which are shared with Alfredson’s best movie to date, it’s fair to say that Border is a completely different beast entirely as it twists and turns its way through a rafter of genres resulting in a very rare case of being particularly hard to sell or even describe without giving away too many spoilers. What can be said however is for all the film’s positives, including a superb central performance from Milonoff, beautiful cinematography from Nadim Carlsen and particular set pieces which leave you absolutely jaw-dropped, Border is ultimately too bizarre to be worthy of a repeat viewing, and thanks to a strange discomforting sensation which ran through the entire film’s runtime, is a film which seems to fall into a category shared with Funny Games by being I film I truly admire but would be undeniably torturous to actually sit through again. Do I recommend it? Yes. Is it great? Yes. But boy, is it truly surreal.

Overall Score: 7/10