Border [2018]
“You’re perfect.”
When is where you are, not where you’re supposed to be? When is where you don’t fit in, exactly the place that needs you the most?
2018’s strange and plodding drama Border seeks to answer these questions with its intimate, uncomfortable, and dense tale of Tina; a border patrol officer with the strange ability to smell what other people are feeling.
In a world that doesn’t understand her – a world that she sees all too clearly – what is her place and where will she finally feel at home?
Beautifully shot and well acted, Border is not a film that will strike all audiences the same. Some may not be able to make it past the awkward and intentional pacing. Others will be turned off by its stranger and more intimate moments. For those that stick with it however, there is a truly great story behind its odd exterior, and I think that’s a fully intentional part of the experience.
Characters are complex and interesting, situations are gray, and, in the end, everyone ends up where they do. Whether that is because they deserve it, earned it, just found themselves there, or you think they should have been somewhere else; it doesn’t matter. In the way that life plods on and leaves people in its wake, so too are the remnants of Border.
Our world lacks the empathy needed for every one shape, size, or configuration, but, sometimes, every one shape, size, or configuration, can find a way to make sense of this world and try to do some good in it.
Border is a weird journey, but one definitely worth taking.
“I don’t see the point of evil… I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
