The Film 'Border' That Reverses Disgust with the Image of Ugliness [Joohee Kang's Video Prism]

Still image from the movie 'Gyeonggye-seon'./Photo by Joy & Cinema

Editor's Note How do you remember that scene? Have you ever suddenly recalled a scene from a movie? This is likely because films are closely connected to our lives. Movies offer another perspective on reality. We present various viewpoints on reality by highlighting a single scene from a film. Please note that there may be spoilers in the description of scenes and processes.

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Juhee] When people encounter strangers who are different from themselves, they often feel fear and suspicion. This is a rejection response to perceived harmful or threatening targets, a defense mechanism that operates to protect oneself from threats. Similarly, most people feel disgust and instinctively avoid insects. Evolutionary psychology explains that such disgust responses are instincts developed to protect oneself from infectious diseases and germs for survival. Disgust primarily arises from suspicion toward targets with different appearances or characteristics and is an emotion anyone can feel. However, when such feelings evolve into discrimination and exclusion against specific targets or groups, it ceases to be an instinctive reaction and becomes violence. The film "Border" questions whether to succumb to such feelings of disgust or to move toward a different form of solidarity.

The protagonist of the film, Tina, has an unusually developed sense of smell that allows her to read people's emotions. She uses this ability to work as a customs officer at the Swedish immigration office, identifying suspicious individuals. She reads emotions such as shame, guilt, and anger from the scents people emit and is responsible for detecting criminals or those likely to commit crimes.

Tina's appearance is also somewhat different from ordinary people. With a blunt forehead and nose, a protruding belly, and a thick build, she has always considered herself a flawed and unattractive being. Although her congenital heightened sense of smell makes her exceptionally effective at customs, people caught with smuggled goods often say to her, "Ugly and unlucky." As a result, Tina rarely interacts with others. She lives with her boyfriend and a few dogs she raises, but this is not genuine social interaction.

One day, Tina meets a person named Bore who looks similar to her and learns from him that they are not humans but "trolls." Tina's different appearance and special abilities are not due to a defect in her DNA but are characteristics of trolls. To Bore, Tina is not a flawed being but a "perfect being." Those who share this resemblance quickly fall in love.

Still image from the movie 'Gyeonggye-seon'./Photo by Joy & Cinema

Naturally, Tina and Bore, who look completely different from people in the human world, symbolize minorities, the non-mainstream. "Border" is a film that directly questions the standards people call normal and the social norms built upon them through the images of the troll characters Tina and Bore.

However, the portrayal of minorities in "Border" differs somewhat from other films. While many films about minorities erase the boundary between the minority character and the audience to allow identification with the character, "Border" deliberately draws a clear line between trolls and humans, or between the characters and the audience.

In the film, Tina and Bore are depicted as having appearances farthest from the conventional standards of beauty. They live by eating insects, which people instinctively find disgusting. Thus, trolls become objects of revulsion that humans instinctively shudder at and reject. Their movements when eating, smelling, or expressing anger resemble animals more than humans. Even when they share love, their appearance does not look beautiful to the "human eye."

The film intentionally distances the audience from the characters through these repulsive images. This is because the minority figure portrayed in this film is not someone who adapts to or appeals for understanding of their flaws and differences in a world that hates them. Instead, the film depicts a character who firmly maintains their identity as a minority even in a world of hatred.

Still image from the movie 'Gyeonggye-seon'./Photo by Joy & Cinema

In the latter part of the film, Tina, who has lived on the fringes of society her whole life, feels a sense of affinity for the first time upon meeting Bore but ultimately cannot follow the same path as him. Tina has a job and interacts with neighbors, though not actively communicating. In contrast, Bore harbors hostility toward humans because of past abuse and experiments inflicted on his parents by humans. Bore even commits the horrific crime of swapping human babies with troll babies.

Bore proposes to Tina that they leave the human world and go together to Finland, where the troll species live. Bore says, "You are not human." Tina replies, "I can't. I don't know why I should become a demon. I don't want to hurt anyone. Does thinking like this make me human?" Tina firmly rejects Bore's proposal. She cannot agree with Bore's actions of responding to human hatred with hatred.

While the repulsive images of trolls previously widened the distance between the characters and the audience, the film suddenly narrows that gap here. Even if some criticize Tina for her grotesque appearance, she has never intended to harm anyone.

After parting with Bore, Tina seems to choose to continue living in the human world. However, she does not try to appear human. Tina now eats insects without hesitation, something she previously avoided. She even feeds insects to her baby sent by Bore. While staying in the human world, Tina clearly acknowledges her identity as a troll.

Tina moves back and forth along the borderline between human and troll. Is Tina human or troll? And how many people in the world cross such boundaries? Perhaps the standards called normal have overly constrained our lives. The film seems to ask whether a life that recognizes even a small part of who one truly is, rather than living according to such standards, is what can be called a truly human life. Behind the choice of repulsive imagery in this film lies the belief that humans are not weak beings who succumb to feelings of disgust.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.