WatchSeeLookView Month At The LFF - Border (Grans) (2018)

It’s film, it’s a festival, it’s in London - it’s the London Film Festival. (Look, when you’ve got a themed month, your intros are going to cover pretty much the same ground. They really aren’t a lot of different ways that you can summarise “I sat in the dark and watched filmy goodness on the big screen”.) Today, we’re venturing into the territory of Swedish noir fantasy with a choice that was a bit of a punt - after all, isn’t the whole point of going to a festival to try out something new?

Border (Grans)
Dir. Ali Abbasi / Dur. 108 mins

In A Nutshell:- Tina, an unusual looking woman, works as a customs officer where her hyper sense of smell allows her to sniff out crime. One day, she meets a similar looking individual coming through customs and her life changes...

The Good:- It’s an intriguing concept - the key element is the mystery behind who or what Tina is and why the stranger, Vore, who comes into her life seems to be so similar to her. The cast are good too - Eva Melander as Tina and Eero Milonoff as Vore build a convincing chemistry. Melander’s performance in particular is compelling to watch. There are also some nice moments of odd humour.

The Bad:- It’s a film that contains a series of reveals and, unfortunately, barring a humourous surprise earlier on in the film, I didn't feel that many of them were that surprising (difficult to say too much here without spoiling it). There were a few shocked gasps in the audience from time to time which surprised me as I’d think a festival audience would contain a lot of people who’d seen a lot of films.
(Side note:- The experience was also slightly marred for me by being sat next to two women in their sixties who I think had picked the wrong film to watch as one of them kept asking her friend to clarify what was going on, while offering explanations that very much missed the point of what was going on. Much as I love seeing films on the big screen, the downside is other people.)

The Verdict:- Overall, this was the first miss of the festival for me but only by comparison to the other films. There’s a lot in there to recommend for lovers of odd foreign fantasy but something didn’t quite gel together overall for me. I’m still glad I went to see it but I have to say that it is the one I’ve enjoyed the least so far.

Next Time:- Time to break out one of the heavy hitters of the whole festival but who’s it going to be? There’s only one way to find out…