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Touches You

Powerful

The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

What would you do to get out of the guat (thanks John Hughes) you find yourself in? This is the central question posed by our protagonist played by Alicia Vikander in an early role before embarking into Hollywood superstardom. In a story w/echoes of the Dardennes' Rosetta, we have a woman whose found her calling in life but due to a mistake in judgment, she'll do anything to keep her station. At once harrowing, traumatic but ultimately uplifting, Pure's heroine gets her due but at what cost?

Finding her utterly mesmerising in Ex_Machina,I started looking for the feature film debut of Alicia Vikander,but was disapprovingly only able to find photos of the deleted DVD,which was even deleted on the Swedish Amazon! Nearing 1,500 reviews,I decided that I'd watch a Vikander flick for the run up,and whilst searching for one of her other films,happily stumbled on the debut title!,which led to me at last finding out how pure things can be.The plot:Sitting around watching trashy TV with her dead end pals and boyfriend, Katarina starts to feel that this is not the life she wants to have. Taken by the purity of Classical music,gets on a new track in life when she sees Mozart's Requiem performed in concert. Wanting to get closer to the music, Katarina gets a job at the venue. Sent reeling from seeing him conduct Requiem, Katarina starts an affair with the conductor of the venue Adam,who soon shows Katarina that the people behind the scenes are not as pure as the music.View on the film:Appearing in the opening moments with half her face in close- up,Alicia Vikander gives a remarkable (feature film) debut performance as Katarina. Utterly frustrated by the ditch her life is stuck in,Vikander shakes Katarina's held-in frustrations onto the screen with a raised voice and confrontational body language. Giving Katarina a love/obsession for Adam verging on the Femme Fatales of Film Noir, Vikander brilliantly unveils the chips in Katarina like a ticking time bomb,as Katarina becomes aware that she is playing a different tune to everyone else. Playing the music Katarina loves, Samuel Fröler hits the high notes in subtly revealing the contradicting strings Adam pulls at,as the charisma Adam shows on stage is torn behind the curtain by an aggressive cynicism. Joining Vikander in making her feature film debut,writer/director Lisa Langseth (who has also made Hotell and Euphoria with Vikander) & cinematographer Simon Pramsten conduct startling confidence on screen,with extended tracking shots being paired up with Classical pieces to heighten Katarina's emotions. Away from the stage, Langseth gives a documentary level of intimacy to Katarina,with shots in the corners of rooms and down corridors catching her "difficult" personal life.Giving Katarina the purity of music,the screenplay by Langseth glimpses into her family life in a fragmented style which vividly shows how disconnected Katarina is from anyone showing pure emotion for her. Making their final note be deliciously dark, Langseth keeps Katarina the conductor of the relationship,and tensely plays a tune of engulfing obsession,which rids Katarina of her purity.

Alicia Vikander's is stunning. Her highly intuitive, effortless and evocative acting talent reminds me in some ways of Jennifer Lawrence in "Winter's Bone." Or Frida Hallgren or Helen Sjöholm in "As It Is in Heaven" (Så som i himmelen).I could have imagined the movie going in several different directions –– and I did, and wondered throughout. For a more "feel good" experience, I might have preferred a couple of them. Still, it's an intriguing and thought-provoking little movie and well worth the time and effort. Some pretty big lose ends notwithstanding.Good acting throughout.Bravo!

It's hard to criticize somebody's good intentions. But in this case I'll make an exception. This film is not very good. When you receive some of the highest awards from the Swedish film academy, you expect something spectacular. You don't find it in this film. Written, produced and directed by women, this film is meant to express an honest depiction from a female perspective. You don't find that either. Instead we get a very naive and dated (i.e. unoriginal) story that tells us that men are pigs that abuse and exploit women. Really, I didn't know that... The worst part is the extremely unoriginal screenplay that includes such Swedish classics such as: suicide, alcoholism, prostitution, depression, working class misery, nudity and melancholia.If this was the BEST screenplay that year, I'd love to see the worst ones.The writer's intentions might be sincere but far from original and very, very naive.Perhaps this was meant to be a children's movie?Or maybe it was all just a dream.I don't want to rant, but could somebody please show these creatives some good political female oriented movies? Norma Rae, Network, The Piano....Or perhaps the writer's intention is to say that a young woman, who feels upset after having had an affair with a married man, and being left by him, and unjustly terminated (from her trial employment), has the right to KILL that man (pig, oppressor) - and get away with it.Perhaps this movie is genius after all.Or maybe not.