Pure

Katarina is twenty and lives in a bleak suburb. Her mother drinks, the flat is a mess and no road appears in front of the girl. One day she hears Mozart on the radio and the music opens like a door onto another life. She applies for a reception job at the concert hall; she lies on the form and gets it. A relationship starts with Adam, the conductor. Adam is married, cultivated and sure of himself. Trying to imitate the world she has just discovered, Katarina leaves her own life behind, and when the affair breaks she has neither the old life nor the new one. Lisa Langseth directs and adapted the script from her own play. Alicia Vikander plays Katarina and Samuel Froler plays Adam. It is a Swedish production. This was Vikander's first leading role in a film and it gave her a noticed start in Sweden. The matter it treats is class; music here is not beauty but the password to a circle she is trying to enter. The film does not build a story that exalts classical music and shows how closed that world is. The narrative does not make Katarina innocent; she lies, uses people and does damage. Adam is plainly exploitative, but the film does not draw him as a monster. Mozart's Requiem returns throughout and carries the feeling of the scenes. The camera stays close to Vikander's face and the narrative remains in her view. The ending gives a scene of revenge, and that scene offers no relief. Its limit is harshness; the narrative is merciless, the sex explicit, and there is very little hope. Who it is for: viewers who like Nordic drama and films about class. Who it is not for: it is harsh, uncomfortable, and the ending cold.