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.
