Hammerman Ikon

Hammerman Ikon Film Guide

Puhdistus (Purge)
2012
***
Director: Antti Jokinen
Cast: Laura Birn, Liisi Tandefelt, Amanda Pilke, Peter Franzén, Krista Kosonen, Tommi Korpela, Kristjan Sarv, Jarmo Mäkinen, Jaanika Arum, Tomi Salmela

Sofi Oksanen's brilliant 2008 novel uses tragic personal stories to chart Estonia's recent history from the Soviet rule to independence and to admonish sexual violence against women. Antti Jokinen's screen adaptation removes the historical context (he gives us no clue when any of the events take place) and scales down the ambitious narrative to a story of two generations of women who have more in common than they think. As a young woman, Aliide would stop at nothing to secure the man she loved. Some 50 years later she meets Zara, a young woman who was forced into sex trafficking by the Russian Mafia. This stripped version obviously cannot match the book's impact but it offers a visually striking and occasionally powerful drama. However, for a film which depicts the horrors of sexual exploitation, there's an awful lot of gratuitous nudity. Laura Birn gives a solid lead performances, even if she rarely looks or dresses like an Estonian peasant from the 1940s.