Here’s my review of Border 2018: the short story is available in the book: Let The Old Dreams Die and the movie is available on hulu and disney free and others at $4 - spoilers under the cut.
It’s a lovely story about Tina, a brilliant customs officer who can sense people’s emotions. She discovers that she’s not ugly and broken she’s just different. I recommend the story, it took me just over an hour to read, the movie is stunning too but has a secondary plot that undermines the core message. Tina’s story will resonate and ache with you if you’re deemed different or damaged, don’t fit western gender ideals... basically anyone who’s felt uncomfortable with eugenics talk because hey that could be you and people you love. Both the book and the film have graphic but tender sex scenes between unusual bodies and a bunch of the reviews seem to be more distressed by “uggos getting laid” than some really disturbing history that’s a lot like our own.
Tina is a troll, there are very few left: a genocide program in the 70s saw them placed in institutions or labs where they died, it’s been covered up and followed by cultural genocide as the few remaining trolls have been raised in adoptive or foster families, their tails cut off and told they are humans with a chromosomal disorder. Tina was raised by a father who would be considered loving if he hadn’t kept his daughter’s heritage from her and stood up for her. She would have known to avoid storms (a lightening strike left her badly hurt) and spend more time in nature which is where she’s healthiest and happiest.
She has a naf boyfriend that she keeps around for the company, they don’t have sex because they tried once and it hurt, she accidentally gave him licence to cheat when she secretly hoped he’d say “no: there will only be you”. He’s a bit of a freeloader but it’s not abusive and it gives her a sense of normalcy so she’s ok with this arrangement.
She gradually uncovers her identity and her family history as she meets a male troll called Vore who falls for her, he’s hiding something she can’t figure out and experiences her own new desires and some hidden anatomy. Both the book and the film end with her happy, living the life she wants to live and having something she’s long wanted.
Here’s the thing, Vore, as a male troll makes unfertilized embryos every few months and they die within a few days. These “eggs” can be moulded into looking like exact replicas of any given human baby. Vore who lives constantly on the run as he doesn’t fit in human society makes a living using his eggs to steal babies and sell them. This isn’t great obviously, but in the book there’s no malicious reason: he has no family, no community but it’s something he can do so he does it. At the end of the book, he’s never going to do it again.
So “humans have every reason to hate trolls because they’re baby snatchers” doesn’t work, Vore became a monster because he’s without any guidance or community, he gives it up because Tina shows him that humans aren’t all genocidal trash.
But big spoiler alert and sickening addition, in the movie, there’s child sexual abuse material being smuggled that Tina is investigating due to her work in customs. Vore knowingly sold a baby to a paedophile and stole babies because he’s getting revenge on the humans for his parents’ death and his abuse in care. This not only feeds the myth of the victim turned perpetrator (which is only backed by paedophiles’ dodgy testimony not any actual data btw), it also feeds the “minorities doing a reverse racism” revenge fantasies common among racists especially the benevolent/ignorant types that we have here in europe.
There is a HUGE difference between baby theft because you don’t know better and baby theft because you know how much it’ll hurt. Adding this not just anti-social but actively cruel dimension to Vore takes away from the horror of what was done to the trolls.
“1 minority bad guy doesn’t represent all” applies to real life where there are 100 others who would never, not a fantasy story where Vore is our sole other representative of the troll race, where Tina got a childhood without too much violence and is very kind and Vore's implied to be a product of cruelty. The subtlety given to the rest of the story falls apart for some shock value. It’s absurd. I am so mad: this story is undermined by this stupid addition.
There is a place for stories about how foster care and bigotry messes you up, how generational trauma echoes down the family line even as each generation does their best to do better by their kids. Border 2018 was NOT that place and the book knew how to keep Tina and her racial trauma front and centre.
The film does a very tactful job of showing terrible things: a graveyard with simple unmarked stones as a marker of the disrespect in death and horrible secrecy. The CSAM is people reacting to the light of a small screen and the sound of a baby crying. But it has no grace for Vore to be more than the angry retelling of horrific violence inflicted on his people and his “humans are worse and deserve worse” reasons. Tina is betrayed by her choice of lover in so many ways. This ends up being a trash retelling of an important story and makes Tina look like a chump.
Again, child molestation is not cyclical and it’s not because the perps have trauma. If you’re reading this and were hurt as a kid: the people who may have hurt you in childhood don’t have excuses and you don’t have to live in fear of being a bad adult yourself. Any media that plays into this myth is harmful to survivors and gives stupid ideas to the people around them. Some narratives stick in our culture like serial killers being smart instead of cops being biased and generally terrible at solving crime. You will hear stories about abuse within minority groups like it isn’t in all spheres of society: it’s a lie to make the majority think they’re good and they’re safe.
Full list of trigger warnings if you’d like to watch the movie (it helps to read the story and keep that as “the canon”) and know the extent of it. I’ve tagged a bunch of stuff i personally didn’t find disturbing because we’re all different.
You see, I sat in dread as this film is classified on wikipedia under “films about CSA” and instead got blindsided by the eugenics-genocide done to the trolls who look and sound like people I know and myself when i’m not verbal and unkempt. I kept flashing back to the canadian first nations residential schools, the covid ‘quality of life’ triage orders, the people I love who wouldn’t have been born if genetic testing had been around (my stance is complicated), the indigenous tribes of scandinavia who are more hairy with larger brows or monolids. It’s all very close and all very still sore.
9.20 a man has a SD card removed from his mouth, there’s some spittle and he makes gagging sounds. Dread about what’s on the card begins here.
28.50-30.30: Tina’s boyfriend gets into bed with her, attempts some grabbing, wants to have sex, she’s half asleep and unbothered, she straight up one arm throws him out of bed onto the floor where he whinges. Make sure to tune back in at minute 31 for the disney princess magic.
46.00-46.30: male troll has his version of a period, an embryo birthing, there’s screaming. {I wish I could go out in the woods for my periods and scream it out in 30 seconds}.
49.36-50.30 CSAM investigation, a small camera screen is seen reflected on a man’s face as a baby is heard crying in the video. This happens again in the interrogation room.
57-1.00 make out and consensual sex with unusual bodies and loud growling. they cry during sex and there’s a lot of tongue kissing. She has an ovipositor looking appendage she’s never seen before but they aren’t human so i’m uncomfortable labelling anything. They’re both happy in their gender which is why I’ve used male and female pronouns.
There is happy naked running in the woods and bathing, not going to bother with time stamps for that if you’re offended by non skinny happy bodies that’s a you problem, please never visit the swimming pool or art museums. They also eat insects as part of their diet, this happens several times and it’s not meant to be gross.
1.05.20-1.07 Vore does his “humans should fear us” vengeance and recounts his parents’ and his pain, Tina talks about catching paedophiles who seemed very ordinary people. His childhood pain feels cheapened by this flattening: humans were bad to trolls but just in case that wasn’t upsetting enough, humans suck because they’ll hurt their own human children /s.
1.09-1.10.20 Tina’s dad is playing up his dementia to avoid questions and Tina feels the weight of her grief.
1.17-1.17.35 close up on the squishy unfertilized embryo
1.19.25 man is grabbed out of police car and 3 punched (literally) to death barely off-screen culminating in 1.19.33-39 close up on a dead man’s fresh head wound and 1.19.56 dead body and blood pool seen at a slight distance
1.21 More Vore explaining why humans are pervs
1.22 feeding the not!embryo
1.23-1.24.30 “they took us, I take their children” Tina’s sense of betrayal is agonizing to watch.
1.26.10 the neighbours’ baby is sick and dying, we know it’s not a baby. He didn’t love her enough to stop his crusade.
1.34-36 Tina finds out her true name and her parents’ graveyard, there is joy and grief and power and pain all intermingled. I’m putting this here so you can take a moment to breathe but it would be a disservice to skip it as intense as it may be.
There is a happy ending. Also a 3 wolf hoodie over a silky mint night gown is both terrible and fabulous fashion.
What I take from the film is the euphoria of self discovery and setting boundaries, the beautiful images of nature that’ll stick with me but I choose to believe in the original story.
“Humans are parasites that use everything on earth for their own amusement.Even their own offspring. The entire human race is a disease, I'm telling you.”
