Border (2018)

Ali Abbasi - 2018 - 101min - Sweden - Swedish - English Subtitles

Border (2018), the film by Swedish director Ali Abbasi, is difficult to categorize into a single genre. Somewhere between horror, fantasy, drama, and yes, magical realism, it tells the story of forty-year-old Tina, who works for Swedish customs. At the border between Denmark and Sweden, she checks travelers for contraband. And Tina is extremely god at her job because she has a special gift: she can smell emotions such as fear, nervousness, or guilt. In the course of the film, she is called in to help solve a child pornography ring. But Tina is not only different because of her gift. Her appearance is hard to describe as well. Somewhere between human and animal. Some would simply describe her as ugly. One day, she meets Vore, who bears a frightening resemblance to her in his physiognomy. Through this encounter, Tina learns things about herself that she would never have imagined.