Lilya 4-ever (2003)

When "Lilya 4-ever" premiered in Sweden 15 years ago, it shattered many hearts and gave fire to a debate on human trafficking that would last for years. I finally watched Moodysson's amazing film and it broke my heart too.Twitter: @7thArtShortRevs (Mårten Larsson).

This movie suggests that life is dreary, boring and depressing in the general area of ex-USSR countries, and in the winter things go from bad to worse. The people are mean, poor drunkards, the scenery consists of gray concrete blocks and there is nothing to do but smell glue. Well, I'm from Finland, and I've visited Estonia, Ukraine and Russia and I have to say that the movie does its portrayal jokingly and lovingly. Obviously there are all kinds of depressing situations all over the world and I don't see that the movie is singling out this area. What it is saying is that these hellish circumstances are reality for some, that there exists darkness and filth in the world, and it is easy to forget, or ignore, living in a first-world apartment complex. It also shows how thin the line between 'first-world' and 'ghetto' can be.It's a tragic story of a girl, an individual, but into her story there is loaded a lot of social commentary. It is difficult to discuss the movie without delving into its agenda, its subject, its political themes. It's a movie about human trafficking, a touchy subject and a touching one, but where Liam Neeson's 'Taken' uses that backdrop to show us a fast-paced action thriller, Lukas Moodysson's 'Lilja 4-Ever' knows how difficult saving people truly is and how deep-rooted the issues here are.

There's been so much written about this film that I approached it with trepidation. The biggest temptation is to say that Moodysson's first two films were optimistic and this is pessimistic in the extreme. However, I am not quite so sure. Whilst the action and the tone of this film are very hard hitting, there still seems to be more than a suggestion of possible happiness in death for the main characters (very optimistic, right?) I feel like starting again. On the one hand the film is very moving but I didn't feel manipulated like I do with many Hollywood movies. I felt very angry at the way everyone who exploited Lilya acted, so much so that I was ready to go out and kill the Swedish pimp (if he'd been real). But still I did feel uplifted in a bleak way by the ending. Third attempt: This bleak and depressing film will and should politicise you about the situation regarding the exploitation of children in the former Soviet Union and many other parts of the world. Go and watch the movie then do something about it. However, Moodysson is still a skillful enough director to make this more than just a depressing polemic.The acting is as near faultless as you will find anywhere. The music, as in all this director's films, perfectly matches the action. It is an important film and it has an important message but it still works as art and as a movie. It's very hard to write a meaningful review. See it.

Just after I saw the movie, I went to bed to get some sleep, but the entire movie just kept spooking through my head all the time, keeping me awake for hours. Even now, I'm still thinking about the horrible faith of that poor girl. That has a lot to do with the excellent acting of course. Oksana Akinshina is a complete stranger to me, but her performance was so incredibly good and so believable, that you might easily forget that you are watching a movie instead of a real life documentary. Artyom Bogucharsky as Volodya, Pavel Ponomaryov as Andrej, Liliya Shinkaryova as Lilja's aunt,... None of them is famous or has played in many other movies, but one by one, they play their roles as if they have never done anything else in their entire lives. There are two scenes that you will remember. The first shows us Lilja's face when the men are on top of her. She just lies there, helpless, without any reason to live. The second shows us the faces of the men that are on top of her. This montage lets us see the ugliness of those people, what kind of animals the world knows. 'Lilja 4-ever' is a sad movie, but a good movie. Although we probably know that things like this happen, it is not bad to realize that from time to time. 'Fucking Åmål' director Lukas Moodysson makes sure we do that with his movie. The music, as well as the way the camera was handled added very much more to the film. In the opening, the music came on so loud and the camera so shaky, you almost know the film would be unbearably painful (in more ways than one).Powerful as the film is, there are some parts which are admittedly over the top. Having Lilja and Volodya play ball with wings on the roof top is quite whimsical actually. But all said, this was definitely a film worth watching