Gräns (Border, dir. Ali Abbasi, 2018) and borders: transnational ties, Nordic roots, Swedish knowledge in critical reception

ABSTRACT

Gräns (Border, dir. Ali Abbasi, 2018) crosses geographical, generic, gendered, and speciated borders. It speaks to Nordic folkloric traditions and engages with Swedish socio-political issues. It also addresses broadly familiar concerns and draws on recognized genre conventions. Critical reception was polyphonic, demonstrating how much readings are produced within and delimited by specific geo-political contexts. In today’s Western world, some cultural perimeters are widened; others are trampled.

KEYWORDS:

• Nordic reception
• Swedish reception
• Anglophone reception
• horror
• folklore
• gender politics
• ethnic discrimination

Acknowledgements

Sincere thanks to Cüneyt Çakirlar, Rosalind Galt, Pietari Kääpä, Kataarina Kyrölä, Mariah Larsson, Deborah Shaw, Iain Robert Smith, and Diane Waldman for their comments on earlier drafts. Special gratitude to Anne Jerslev, Kataarina Kyrölä, Mariah Larsson, and Rikke Schubart for help locating Norwegian, Finnish, Swedish, and Danish reviews. All translations are mine.

Notes

1. The Internet Movie Database (n.d.) lists Meta Film Stockholm, Spark Film & TV (as Black Spark Film & TV), and Kärnfilm as producers, and Film i Väst, Sveriges Television, and Meta Film as co-producers. Additional support came from the Copenhagen Film Fund, Svenska Filminstitutet, Eurimages, the European Union’s MEDIA Programme, the Danish-based Nordisk Film- & TV Fond, and Danske Filminstitutet. Svensk Filmdatabas (n.d.) lists only Meta Spark & Kärnfilm AB as production companies.

2. The Nordic Genre Initiative awarded Gräns more funding for development, production, distribution, and marketing than any other genre film. Gustafsson and Kääpä (2021, 237).

3. The Nordic Film and TV Fund was started in 1990 to stimulate co-productions among the five Nordic nations. Gustafsson and Kääpä (2021, 237). Distribution in at least two Nordic countries is a condition of funding. Hjort (2005).

4. Gräns has, to date, elicited commentary from ‘queer-indigenous,’ ‘border studies,’ ‘new materialist, post-humanist,’ and ‘trans*, post-celluloid, posthumanist’ perspectives. Kyrölä (n.d.); Mazaj (2019); Pulsifer (2019); Mrozewicz (2021). The descriptions are the authors’ own.

5. 37 sources were Anglophone (US, British, Canadian), 26 were Nordic (Danish, Norwegian, Finnish), and 28 were Swedish. US sources included, for example, the New York Times, Slant, Wall Street Journal, LA Times, and Hollywood Reporter; UK sources, Time Out, (London) Times, and Observer; Canadian sources, the Globe and Mail and Toronto International Film Festival; Danish sources, Weekendavisen and Jyllands Posten; Norwegian sources, Stavanger Aftenblad and Aftenposten; Finnish sources, Helsingin Sanomat, Ilta-Sanomat, and Aamulehti; Swedish sources, Svensk TV, Expressen, Ystads Allehanda, and Norrtelje Tidning.

6. Many scholars find ‘transnational’ a more precise term than ‘global,’ ‘international,’ or ‘world,’ and representative of a methodological approach to collaborations and/or exchanges among national and/or regional media personnel, institutions, and audiences. Acknowledgment of the ‘power dynamics within cinematic border crossings’ is mandatory. Fisher and Smith (2019, 3).

7. Can the same be said of other regionally based cinemas and media? Further investigation would be welcome.

8. In 2018 only 5% of all films given theatrical distribution in Sweden were horror films. 42% of all films came from North America, 35% from other European countries, 18% from Sweden. Tables 3 and 22, Svenska Filminstitutet (2018).

9. After ‘horror’ and in descending frequency Swedish critics categorized Gräns as fantasy, crime, romance, and drama.

10. See also Leffler (2009) and Umland and Umland (2005).

11. I follow the film – and the short story – in referring to Tina as ‘she’ and the other troll, Vore (Eero Milonoff) as ‘he.’ Casting and costuming reinforce the idea that both are cisgender, although neither lead character has the secondary sexual traits associated with what we think is their gender. Kyrölä (n.d.) emphasizes their gender fluidity, using ‘they’ for both trolls.

12. ‘Gräns’ appears in Pappersväggar (Paper Walls). It was translated into English as ‘The Border’ in the collection Let the Old Dreams Die.

13. For similar reasons, Lindblad (2018) and Simon (2018) likened Eva Melander’s transformational performance to Robert De Niro’s weight gain in Raging Bull (dir. Martin Scorsese, 1980) and Charlize Theron’s uglification in Monster (dir. Patty Jenkins, 2003), respectively.

14. Burr mentioned Trolljeggaren (Trollhunter, dir. Andre Øvredal, 2010). Whittaker invoked Thelma (dir. Joachim Trier, 2017) and Thale (dir. Alexander Nordaas, 2010).

15. Writing for Denmark’s leading newspaper, Berlinske, however, Kristian Lindberg (2018) characterized Abbasi as Swedish Iranian.

16. Abbasi described himself to Sweden’s Gunnar Rehlin and Matilda Kvarnström Lantz (2018) as ‘Iranian-Swedish-Danish, all three or neither nor.’

17. Producer Nina Bisgaard, co-producer Mikael Windelin, director of photography Carlsen, editor Olivia Neergaard-Holm, editing consultant Molly Malene Stensgaard, composer Martin Dirkov, sound designer Rune Sand, and VFX supervisor Peter Hjorth are all Danes.

18. More minor examples of erasure include mentions of Astrid Lindgren’s Kalle Blomqvist (about a boy detective) and Vi på Saltkråkan (about a girl and her family in the Stockholm archipelago), and reference to Tove Jansson’s Pappan och havet (about the Finnish Moomin troll family). On the film adaptation see also Mrozewicz (2021).

19. For Carlsen’s approach to the cinematography see Mrozewicz (2021), especially 16-18 and 25-6.

20. Lindqvist’s story had their coupling occur on a couch by candlelight. Abbasi felt strongly that a troll consummation should not, could not, would not, take place indoors. Andersson (2018b).

21. That the actors scream was doubtless involuntary: although mentally prepared, the water was icy, barely 46°F. Yet being naked was easier than plunging into the lake or running barefoot over sticks and stones in the woods, Melander admitted. Toronto International Film Festival (2018).

22. See further Larsson (2015). Ingmar Bergman’s art-house classics as well as certain documentaries, for example Jag är nyfiken, gul (I Am Curious, Yellow, dir. Vilgot Sjöman, 1967) and Jag är nyfiken, blå (I Am Curious, Blue, dir. Vilgot Sjöman, 1968), not just explicitly adult films, incorporated nudity in the 1960s and 1970s.

23. On Swedish trolls, see Henriksson (2012); Institutet för språk och folkminnen (n.d.); Schön (1991). Norwegian trolls live in the mountains. In Finland trolls are called peikko. Peikko, like Norwegian troll, are larger than Swedish troll. Peikko can change size, become invisible, and sleep for hundreds of years.

24. At one point Tina and Vore cower under a coffee table as it thunders and lightnings outside. Both bear scars from earlier lightning strikes.

25. The towns Trollhättan and Trollbäcken, for example, are named after trolls. Trollskog refers to a dark, mossy forest; trollsmör is a kind of mushroom; trollkunnig means knowledgeable about troll and witchcraft.

26. The naming follows the short story’s lead. In Finnish folklore, however, hiisit are small, evil forest creatures like goblins, not troll, and hiisit is a plural noun. Hiisi is singular. Lindqvist misappropriated or reinvented Finnish grammar in the short story. Thanks to Kataarina Kyrölä for this observation.

27. At times Tina wears girlish clothing like a fluffy white sweater, pink sweatshirt, or short blue denim jumper. Often it is too tight.

28. Trolls made their way into Nordic horror films only in 2010, with Norway’s Trolljegeren. Dancus (2016); Höglund (2017); Rees (2011). Other recent Nordic horror films present vittra (wights) and huldra. See for example Thale, Vittra (dir. Sonny Laguna, 2012) and Huldra: Lady of the Forest (dir. Ove Valeskog, 2016).

29. At Cannes and again at the Toronto International Film Festival Abbasi claimed not to have known anything about trolls before making the film beside what he read in Wikipedia. He thought of Tina and Vore as Neanderthals as well. Ganjavie (2018); Toronto International Film Festival (2018).

30. Other than children’s films like Frozen (dir. Chris Buck and Jennifer Lee, 2013) and the Lord of the Ring trilogy (dir. Peter Jackson, 2001, 2002, 2003), there are not many Anglophone films about troll.

31. For centuries Sweden ruled Finland, ceding control to Russia in 1809; Finland declared its independence only in 1917. In the 1950s and 1960s many Finns emigrated to Sweden in search of work. In 2018 Finland was the third most common country of origin for people born outside Sweden, surpassed only by Syria and Iraq, and followed by Poland, Iran, and Somalia. Migrationsverket (2019).

32. The short story says only that Vore speaks Swedish without a local dialect or foreign accent. Lindqvist (2006, 29).

33. Clear traces of what was, in effect, a racist and sexist mind-set underpin the description given of one female patient by a doctor at Ulleråkers hospital. His account makes her seem like a troll: ‘Face of round form with a very low brow and deep-seated hairline, small somewhat deeply-seated eyes, and a somewhat protruding upper jaw.’ Broberg and Tydén (1991, 127). See further Björkman and Widmalm (2010); Broberg (1996a), (1996b).

34. Until 2007, trans individuals had to be 18 years old or older, unmarried, Swedish citizens, and have lived as a member of the opposite sex for two years to even obtain hormones. In 2007 the stipulations concerning citizenship and marital status were removed.

35. See Wallenberg (2015) for a discussion of some of the trans films shown in Sweden.

36. The Swedish medical ethics advisory board counseled physicians not to surgically ‘normalize’ babies and young children with intersex genitalia or other sexually ambiguous traits unless urgent medical justification was present, but only as late as 2017. (Statens medicinsk-etiska råd 2017). Given how few intersex surgeries were performed in Sweden annually – perhaps 20 per year – it is understandable that no reviewer linked the removal of the little trolls’ tails to intersex operations.

37. Those who did not identify the film as queer or transgender probably did not want to give away the plot or did not want to prejudice viewers – or both.

38. Predictably, Gräns earned more awards and netted more nominations in Sweden than anywhere else. Only Nordic – and of course primarily Swedish – reviewers applauded its six wins and three nominations at Sweden’s Guldbagge awards. (The ‘Golden Beetle’ is Sweden’s Oscar equivalent.) Border’s biggest US success came when it won Best Film at the Los Angeles Film Festival. Other US wins occurred at smaller festivals. Internet Movie Database (n.d.b).

39. The raves gesture toward enchantment and fantasy. ‘Förtrollande’ (‘mesmerizing’) is credited to Screen International; ‘fängslande’ (‘captivating’) is credited to Hollywood Reporter; ‘liknar ingenting annat du sett’ (‘like nothing you have ever seen’) is credited to Screen Daily and ‘Inget mindre än fantastiskt!’ (‘Nothing less than fantastic’) is credited to Screen Anarchy. TriArt Film (2018a, 2018b).

40. Bigger and better funded, the Danish and Swedish media industries send more films to other Nordic countries than vice versa. Gustafsson and Kääpä (2015, 5).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Chris Holmlund

Chris Holmlund is Professor Emerita at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville. Her books include (as author) Female Trouble and Impossible Bodies, (as editor or co-editor) The Ultimate Stallone Reader, American Cinema of the 1990s, Contemporary American Independent Film, and Between the Sheets, In the Streets: Queer, Lesbian, Gay Documentary. Current projects include Action Cinema Since 2000 (co-edited with Lisa Purse and Yvonne Tasker) and Action Film, Action Stars.