Redundant and unnecessary.

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

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?

Unfortunately, the film is rather schematic and a bit flat from the story. Both main characters are over the top. The good and the bad, the victim of falling in love and the icy power-man. You do not need to watch a movie about that, you can do social research ...The intention to understand Kirkegaard as an invitation to kill, I think also very questionable.Unfortunately, the film also has problems with the music and the cuts. It is told by Mozart and at the same time you hear romantic music, not by Mozart. Rachmaninov borrows the female protagonist from the library and then listens to Mozart (clarinet concerto). Also, pieces of music are interrupted to the pictures.Overall, this film is not a challenge and suffers from some essential shortcomings.

I came across this movie on Netflix streaming. It is the first feature movie for Alicia Vikander, for it to succeed she must turn in a masterful performance and she does. Most of the language is Swedish, with English subtitles.The original Swedish title translates to "To that which is beautiful".Alicia Vikander, about 20, is Katarina. Her character is established early when we witness her chasing and wrestling to the lunchroom floor a school boy who was calling her names, 'slut' among them. This established two things, she had a reputation for sleeping around and she had a quick temper. She lives with her young boyfriend who seems like a nice guy but their lives are bland, watching the telly and playing video games. One day Katarina is on the computer and quite by accident comes across a youtube video with Mozart music and she seems to be transformed while listening to it. She is calm and happy. Then she decides to walk into the city's concert hall one day to find the symphony is rehearsing. It seems she has fallen in love with a music she had no idea existed.While standing around a lady with the symphony mistakes her for someone interviewing for a job as a receptionist and switchboard attendant. With no qualifications at all she makes up a story that her mother had been a concert pianist in Australia, named Kelly Clarkson. But she died when Katarina was only 2. Struck by her story she was given the job on a trial basis. She turns out to be a model, efficient employee.Just past halfway in the movie a song is playing on the soundtrack, lyrics:I killed myself today, For second life replay, I killed myself todayI had too many lives, I did it to survive, So I killed myself todayBut somehow I'm not dead, I'm still inside a head, To testify what's real When truth is to believeAnd that sort of sums up the story here, Katarina needed to kill the old self to reinvent a new self that would be happy and productive.Good movie, I really enjoyed it and the performance of Vikander.SPOILERS: The director of the orchestra was Samuel Fröler, 50-ish, as Adam. He takes an immediate liking to Katerina and she is flattered that a great (in her eyes) musician would pay attention to her. At a social their eyes meet, he motions for her to follow him, they consummate their passion. She goes to his house, they sleep naked, they act like young lovers. But then his wife calls, she is traveling in Italy with the children. He was just using this young lady, barely more than a girl, for his own entertainment, to be discarded when the novelty is gone. Or his wife returns. She doesn't give up easily, Adam instructs that she be fired, she has to be taken out forcibly. After a concert she sneaks into Adam's office, she says she wants her job back. He toys with her, asks her to dance to get her job back, then laughs at her. When he lights up a smoke and reclines on the sill of an open window we know that she will push him out, to his death in the street below. The movie ends with her being re-employed and working with the youth audience outreach. And she is happy.

PURE ('Till det som är vackert') is a stunning little film from Sweden written and directed by newcomer Lisa Langseth. It is currently in the 'on demand' section of Eurocinema on television and will likely be released on a USA format DVD soon. The film embraces many subjects - coming of age, the impact of classical music on young minds, affaires de coeur, philosophy, the politics of concert halls, mother daughter relationships scarred by mental illness - and in the end succeeds in dealing with some ethical questions. Katarina (Alicia Vikander, a brilliant, young, fresh 22 year old Swedish actress) lives in poverty with her boyfriend Mattias (Martin Wallström, a handsome, sensitive blue-eyed actor) in an unkempt apartment where Mattias spends his days watching television while Katarina seeks meaning to her grungy life on the streets as a prostitute. Her family is in disarray - her mother Birgitta (Josephine Bauer) is an alcoholic and a mentally ill wasted person - and Katarina is discontent. By chance she hears some Mozart played on the YouTube and has an epiphany moment. She has been a driven, hurt and hopeful soul, but Hearing Mozart somehow changes that. The music draws her to the Gothenburg Symphony Concert Hall where because of some free tickets she and Mattias hear a performance of the Mozart Requiem as conducted by Adam (Samuel Fröler): the experience bores Mattias but transforms Katarina. The concert hall becomes a magnet for Katarina and as she sneaks into the hall for a rehearsal of the Beethoven 3rd she is mistakenly identified by receptionist Nya (Isabella Bauer) as a potential candidate for job in the hall. Katarina's apparent love for music and her openness gain her the position of Concert Hall receptionist: she has escaped her dreary life and is surrounded by classical music. Gradually Katarina meets and becomes friends with Adam who finds her refreshing and in addition to talking about music he introduces her to great literature and philosophy. The bond grows and Katarina and Adam have an affair, a relationship that is transient because Adam is married. When Adam shares with Katarina that the affair must not go on, Katarina is crushed, and because of the fear Adam holds about her omnipresence in the concert hall, he has her fired. The manner in which this abrupt change in Katarina's transformed new life progresses echoes one of the phrases of Kierkegaard the Adam taught her - "Courage is life's only measure' - and the story takes surprising turns and an even more surprising end. Much of the success of the film is due to the extraordinary acting by Alicia Vikander, a young talent who seems wise beyond her years as far as intuitive acting skills. The musical score is attributed to Per-Erik Winberg, though the music throughout the film is Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and Massenet. In addition to the story being well written and directed and performed, there is a secondary message for the audience: the introduction to classical music and to cultural concepts can change lives of young people if they gain exposure. It is a challenge we should attempt of provide. Grady Harp