BORDER

Tina isn't the kind of woman men might easily fall in love with. To say she's plain is an understatement; she has a masculine face and hands and is clearly unattractive but she has a gift or what some may call a curse. She can smell fear and guilt and is employed as a customs officer, literally sniffing out smugglers. One day she meets someone who looks just like her and to whom she develops a strange attraction, mutual spirits, it would seem, both mentally as well as physically.

"Border" is fundamentally a love story but it's a very strange and disturbing one. You can see elements of both "Eraserhead" and "The Elephant Man" so you might say it's a very Lynchian picture. Tina and her Vore are the lovers of a horror film; they are like the monsters in folklore who eat maggots and have an affinity with wild animals and while a good deal of the effectiveness of their performances is achieved through make-up both Eva Melander and Eero Milonoff are superb.

There's a subplot involving a child pornography ring where the monsters are physically attractive but morally repugnant and director Abi Abbasi contrasts their evil with the goodness of Tina. However, Vore has a secret side, making him a monster, too, in a saga that refuses to be pigeonholed. In an age when most movies, particularly 'horror' movies, are largely conventional or 'arty' for art's sake, it's refreshing to see something as original as this, a film that won't be pinned down to any specific genre. It was a worthy winner in the Un Certain Regard category at Cannes.