Film: Lilya (Lilja) 4-ever
Directed by Lukas Moodysson
Sweden (2002)
Coming-Of-Age/Urban Drama
7 parts/105 mins
In Russian with English subtitles (default)
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(WARNING: Film contains some scenes of strong sexual content, but depicted within a serious, social problem. Rated R by MPAA)
Synopsis (Some Spoilers):
A teenager abandoned by her family slips into a downward spiral of sex and degradation in this frank drama from Sweden. Lilya (Oksana Akinshina) is a 16-year-old girl growing up in poverty in the former Soviet Union. Lilya's mother (Lyubov Agapova) is moving to the United States with her new boyfriend, and Lilya has been told she'll be coming with them. However, at the last minute Lilya is informed she'll be staying behind with her aunt Anna (Liliya Shinkaryova), and she'll be joining her mother later on. For the most part left on her own, Lilya spends much of her time with her best friend, Natasha, and comes to the rescue of Volodya, a suicidal 14-year-old boy who has been thrown out of his home and has a serious problem with alcohol and drugs. When Lilya learns that her mother has no intention of bringing her to the United States, she becomes despondent and begins sleeping with men for money. Not long after taking up the sex trade she meets Andrei, who promises her a better and easier life if she'll come to Sweden with him. However, Lilya learns the hard way that there's no truth in Andrei's words as she is subjected to the lowest and most degrading levels of the sex-for-hire business.
Review:
Director Moodysson on the film:
"My intention was for the audience to just sit there and feel like they were being run over by a train, and that they cannot really defend themselves. I don't want people just to be sad and depressed. Most people get angry. That's really the reaction I wanted."
The Dickensian tale of an Eastern European teen left to rot in the decaying tenements of the former Soviet Union, Lilya 4-Ever mixes grimy hyperrealism with flamboyant flights of fancy and leavens its politically charged subtext with quietly compelling storytelling. The dramatic success of the film rests with star Oksana Akinshina, veteran of precisely one previous feature. Luckily for Moodysson and his audience, the young actress proves more than capable of embodying both universal teen ennui and a horrifyingly specific form of bruised innocence. Under the intimate watch of cinematographer Ulf Brantas' handheld camera, Akinshina brings Lilya to life through the insouciant cast of her mouth, the defiant flash of her smile, and the quiet gravity of her suffering. The camera loves her, and the audience can't help but do the same, which makes her slow slide from idleness to exploitation all the more painful. Indeed, even as her eventual fate becomes painfully obvious, Lilya inspires dramatic tension. The film's final act is the emotional equivalent of a slasher film in which the audience screams encouragement to the heroine no matter how blindly she wanders into danger.
But still, why watch this one, such an apparently bleak film? Simply, because it happened. Lilya's story is based on Dangoule Rasalaite, a Lithuanian girl who was lured to Sweden in 1999 and whose time there ended exactly as Lilya's did. And, simply, because bleakness can carry a strange, beautiful power. Without any explicitness, Moodysson gradually overwhelms you with the brutal reality of Lilya's abandonment, turning the unimaginable not just imaginable, but unforgettable. Little wonder that the film has been shown around the world as part of campaigns to reduce human-trafficking and has been used in campaigns to warn young women in Eastern Europe of the dangers of a sex trade which the United Nations reports involves 700,000 women and children.
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i feel sorry for Lilya and the little boy
cover821 1 month ago
@Miiille96 В Эстонии использовались кроны.
HHHPPP8 4 months ago
lol
magekeller 4 months ago
neverovatan film
argonsound 4 months ago
Those guys at the end were real pigs!
dk2death 4 months ago
Вы заметили что этот шафёр сказал 100 крон?
Крона: шведские денги :).
Miiille96 6 months ago
name of the song 9.25 please
marrrgaretta 6 months ago
ahhhhh fitttaaaaa
PsychadelicElephant 7 months ago