Dir. Lukas Moodysson, Denmark/Sweden, 2002, 109 mins, subtitles
Cast:
Pavel Ponomaryov, Oksana Akinshina, Artiom Bogucharski
Lilya lives in a poor and dreary part of the Soviet Union, where she has her dreams like any other teenage girl. When her mother abandons her to go to America, Lilya is left to fend for herself, with only her best friend Volodya to keep her company. What's a girl to do to survive and what hope does she has in finding her dream of a better life away from here? Hope comes in the shape of Andrei (Pavel Ponomaryov) who offers to take her to Sweden and happiness.
Director Lukas Moodysson's three features to date have received waves of praise and rave reviews worldwide. His first film Fucking Amal was Sweden's highest grossing film of the nineties, gaining the ultimate review from the master himself Ingmar Bergman who called it "a masters first masterpiece", following this up with cross-over comedy success, Together. Lilya 4-Ever is a different piece, closer one feels to the poet's heart, Moodysson having published various works of poetry. The film deals with the volatile and emotional story of how Lilya is trafficked and sold into prostitution. Unicef estimates that one million children a year are currently trafficked across the globe into slavery and sexual exploitation. Not an easy subject to address but given two starling performances by Oksana Akinshina as Lilya and Artiom Bogucharski as her pal and guardian angel Volodya, Lukas pulls together a film that draws you in to seeing not just the fate of these two Nike wearing innocents but of children everywhere. The film dares to show what we so often fail to see, the invisible victims of society. This tragic story, with its beautiful cinematography by Ulf Brantas, this is one film that when you leave the cinema makes you feel the world has changed. Justin Whitton |
