Pure (Lisa Landsedh, 2010): Sweden

Reviewed by My Eklund. Viewed at Santa Barbara Film Festival 2011.

Pure is a Swedish film, written and directed by Lisa Landsedh. For her amazing work, she has been awarded the best screenplay prize at the festival, and Alicia Vikander has been awarded the best actresses of 2011. She plays the 20-year-old Catherine, a girl from a rundown suburb of Gothenburg who has never been able to keep a job longer than a couple of weeks. When she accidentally stumbles across a clip of Mozart’s Requiem on YouTube, she becomes attached to the classical music. In a desire to create a new identity, she follows the music and lies her way into a job as a receptionist at a concert hall. She leaves her boyfriend, her mother and her friends and starts a relationship with an older and married conductor, Adam. She does all this to reach what she thinks is beautiful. But the new world is found to be filled with power hierarchies and codes that hold back those who do not do what they are told. Catherine, who now has burned all her bridges, is determined to stay in her new life.

The heavy and slow symphony of Beethoven’s becomes as a leitmotif for Catherine’s and Adam’s relationship. The words that are emphasized in this film are “the lives courage is the only true dimension”, and it helps Catherine go through her conflicts.

The character Catherine is the image of virtually the entire film through, and her face mirrors the drama that goes from cold, closed and impassive to inspiring and almost dissolving in her newly aroused feelings. It is magical to see such a total transformation. The conductor Adam develops in the other direction, from being charming and passionate to chilly and distant. His insensitivity is daunting but cleverly deliberated. Here is a man who had thought he could be a little adventures with Catharine. Adam makes her fall for him, mostly because they have the same interest in music and books. However, he backs off because his wife and child become more important. Catherine becomes a problem who turns his relationship into a dangerous game, and he might lose it all.

Adam does not know whom he has challenged. If their “business” is a trifle for him, it is deadly serious for her. No one should close the door to the courageous new world that has opened for her. There is no return.

Pure is mature and excellent film by Lisa Langseth about what can happen when a man who has everything going for him, a family and a job that he loves, is faced with a young woman who has nothing, who unconditionally wants him and are willing to do anything to get to that point. But is it him as a person she wants or is it his lifestyle that she is “in love” with? She becomes blinded by his interest in books about life and psychology; his passion for life; that she has never been exposed to earlier.