Grans (2018)

Directed by: Ali Abbasi | 108 minutes | drama, fantasy, romance | Actors: Eva Melander, Eero Milonoff, Jörgen Thorsson, Ann Petrén, Sten Ljunggren, Kjell Wilhelmsen, Rakel Wärmländer, Andreas Kundler, Matti Boustedt, Tomas Åhnstrand, Josefin Neldén, Henrik Johansson, Ibrahim Faal

Sweden is widely known as a stable and prosperous country. Healthy people with healthy jobs and healthy habits, with a social safety net to absorb the worst blows and the comforting music of ABBA when even that safety net no longer helps. How easy it is to forget that Sweden is also the country with a (now abolished) controversial sterilization program for socially and racially undesirable individuals. And with a strange mythology in which we encounter giants and trolls, among other things. Trolls who, as everyone knows, exchange human children for their own brood.

That ambiguous character of the Swedes is the first thing that comes to mind after seeing the arthouse mystery romantic drama ‘Gräns’. In this Swedish curio, we meet the horribly ugly customs officer Tina, a woman with a bloodhound nose, who uses them to sniff travelers who might have something to hide. Tina lives in a cottage in a forest with the lap swan Roland. One day Tina meets the equally ugly Vore, a man with whom she feels an instant click. A click that goes deeper than that shared ugliness.

That the main characters are hideous is of course not a negative, but their unusual appearance ensures that you as a viewer do not get an emotional bond with them. Movie history is full of the ugliests we love to identify with, but the problem is that Tina and Vore’s deformed faces show only the most basic emotions (anger, fear, and lust) and we don’t have landmarks for the subtler ones. to have.

Against that lack of emotional recognizability, there is a beauty of a plot. The longer ‘Gräns’ lasts, the better you understand what this film is really about and how ingeniously all the storylines come together in the end. It would be a shame to reveal more about that plot, but here too the character of Swedish society plays an important role.

The bigger story could have easily been snowed under in the many strange elements that this film has. Rarely have we seen so many bizarre scenes as in this drama, from the sniffing customs officer to a completely freaked out sex scene. As a viewer you just have to have the confidence that all that eccentricity serves a higher purpose. Those who have that confidence will be rewarded with one of the most original and ingenious arthouse films of this year.