Puhdistus

A young woman forced into a prostitution ring in Estonia escapes and seeks refuge with an old lady whose horrific past is revealed through a series of flashbacks, and although I am not fan of a non linear style of filmmaking, it works well for this particular movie.The two main actresses are terrific and the World War Two history lesson regarding Estonia and Stalin's communist Russia is quite compelling. Both the current theme of white slavery and the past one of atrocities committed in the name of patriotism and honor are portrayed in a brutal and honest way. Purge runs a bit too long at two hours and five minutes, but even with that small criticism, I would rank it as one of my favorite foreign language films.

I've read Sofi Oksanen book before seeing the film and for me that's obvious that we have here a great film based on a great book. Usually the historic event crush individual lives and destinies, but sometimes is really amassing how peoples can react so different and how unexpected individual desires mixed up with historical event can generate dramas. This film also remembered me another one, a Romanian one, "Somewhere in the East", made after Augustin Buzura's novel "Fetele tacerii", part of the subject being related.

Yes ,this movie has plenty of raw scenes, and not for everyone, but for others , you can see the powerful message through it! I consider the film very well directed and performed. Joining history into present problems is phenomenal. Actors and actresses performance is brilliant! This is the best dramas I have ever seen,keeping in mind that I've seen Schindler's List. I will recommend this film to anybody , who is interested in great acting and untold history. It certainly made me realize, how fortunate and blessed I am. Bravo to the cooperation of countries so little like Finland and Estonia, making so great movie! Already waiting for the next movie!

Puhdistus (aka Purge) is a well executed drama based on a book by Sofi Oksanen. It pictures the torments of the people of Estonia in the soviet era without being a historical drama. It tells a story of two sisters, of their love to a same man which leads to a deception and ultimate disappointment. A young woman who is brought back by a coincidence is also connected to their past in the beginning.

For a finnish movie with a limited budget this is absolutely the film of the year or maybe a film of the few decades. There'd been nothing like this coming out from the finnish cinema until now. Finnish movies consists of mainly farce comedies, dull historical movies, war movies and that's just about all. Antti J. Jokinen breaks this eternal line of just average ordinary movies by bringing us a film with a beautiful cinematography, fantastic camera work, strong actor performance and an interesting plot. It is loyal to the book but it wouldn't be fair to judge the film and book against each other as with films it has to be consistent and quite solid up until the end and the book can go deeper.

The movie itself is very straight forward film with nothing left to question. That may be one drawback among a few others that kept me from giving this movie full ten stars. The other issue is that the movie doesn't engage as much as it should. Scenes just roll from one to another quite fast and things just happen and that feeling may not be avoided just after the first hour. I guessed what was going to happen but still after the film i felt entertained and not at all disappointed.

I also thought that presenting only one dimensional good vs. evil doesn't do the movie any good. These three three things just made me take a few stars off. It's still an enjoyable strong film that makes an impression but it's good for one time viewing only.

Jokinen has succeeded with this film and i sure hope he has many other interesting films to direct in the future.

This film has wonderful photography and staging. I had already read the book, but I still found the film very hard to follow because of the brutal editing. Moreover, the young Aliide is so different in appearance (much too glamorous) from the old one we see at the beginning, that it is hard to connect them.

It is also unclear that Linda (Aliide's niece) has been trafficked from Siberia to sex-slavery in Berlin by a pair of thugs. Her escape from their clutches in an Estonian town south of Tallinn is very muddled.

Aliide saves her own skin by sacrificing her sister and niece (Linda) to the soviet Russians, while harbouring a Nazi sympathiser. It is poetic justice that she ends up protecting her niece from the new kind of Russian threat: sex-slave traffickers.

I'm sure that just an extra 5-10 minutes could have elucidated the plot.

It is such a pity that the script does not match the indoor photography that recalls Tarkovsky and early Bergman .