Beyond the Border aka Gränsen is a Swedish war movie from 2011 directed by Richard Holm taking place in 1942 during World War II. It tells the story of a group of Swedish soldiers trying to save the younger brother of one of them who got lost beyond the border to Norway and got captured by the Nazis. The premise is based on the 300 Swedish soldiers who mysteriously vanished during the war.
The Swedish title Gränsen means "The Border" and is a play on the Swedish phrase "Du har gått över gränsen" i.e. "You have crossed the line".
Beyond the Border provides examples of:
- Berserk Button: When Aron sees his brother being tortured by the nazis.
- Big Badass Battle Sequence: When Aron, Willie and Egil storms the German HQ.
- Chekhov's Gun: The bomb Aron and Adolfsson place in the beginning of the movie.
- The Dead Have Names: Willie says he and his men returned to the battlefield and collected the bodies of the fallen. He enforces this on the other protagonists. This is Truth in Television since this was the practice of the Finnish soldiers during the Winter War, "No friend is left behind".
- Eye Scream: Aron finds a soldier who had his eye cut out.
- La Résistance: Egil, the Norweigan partisan.
- My God, What Have I Done?: When Aron kills a man for the first time. He later has a hallucination where the soldier comes back and shoots him the same way.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: 300 Swedish soldiers on the Norwegian border disappeared during World War II; this film attempts to explain what happened.
