09 Mar Border (2018)
Slow evolution of the story
If you read anything about this, it will likely be about the story, the acting, the originality. These are apt and true; I’ve never seen more effective acting. The story is wholly original following no genre known to me. Though I expected the ending, it was a welcome resolution. I’ll get to that. Others may remark that it is both too fantasy-centric and at the same time too sharply disturbing on the pedophilia substory. They may say the reference to mistreated indigenous is too ‘woke’. I found none of this detracted from the human spine of the thing, and only discovered afterward that others noted such things.
What I experienced was storytelling at its finest. It gave me an easy entry, withholding and revealing in just the right proportions. Each experience built on what I knew from what went before. Because all the things that make a film predictable are missing, the filmmaker and collaborators can understand precisely what I know and want to know — because we are working on the most common and human vocabulary.
That is, I was on two parallel voyages. One was with Tina, following her path as I would…
and a parallel one in the awareness of the contract with the filmmaker. It is a promiscuous intimacy to share a life for a couple hours, and I withdraw at the slightest mismatch. When was the last time I had such freedom of release because the narrative discovery was so comfortable? Arrival?
The border is that line between who we are (supposing everyone is extraordinary) and who we suppose ourselves to be; and the border of sex roles; and the border between the magic of nature (however you root it) and civilisation; and what we consider acceptable acts where selfishness and harm to others are balanced. And all of the borders cleverly conflated by a Persian in a Swedish film narrative community.
Stop here if you have not seen this. Our focus is a human woman who turns out to be neither. A loner who actually isn’t. An outsider who finds an inside. And that tip between wondering who you are, and knowing because of a child.
Remarkable.
Posted in 2025
Ted’s Evaluation — 3 of 3: Worth watching.
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