User reviews

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).

The movie is extremely sad & hard to watch, cause of its unbelievably realistic picture of poverty, humiliation & depression in which the vast majority of people in the former USSR republics live, including here in Russia. The minority of those who have still managed to keep being human beings in this mess is surrounded & slowly devastated by demoralised animals, created by the decades of communist reign. The realism of the picture is overwhelming & scary. It is so unexpected that a Swedish director have managed to see all the sadness, corruption, violence & immorality of post-USSR space much more clearly than any Russian director ever will. Probably, it is because most people here in Russia see the hell which is going on around them as a normal thing. That's why we need movies such as this - to face the truth, we are so trying to escape in everyday life. Plus, the film exposes the problem of human traffic in such true-to-life manner, it is painful. Worth watching for former USSR citizens, in order to wake-up & realize how degenerate they're becoming. Worth watching for foreigners in order to understand how the 99% of people in Russia & other post-soviet countries live, outside the glamorous & fake facades of Moscow city.

It is not often that everyone is quiet after a movie at the cinema. Some were crying, others did not know how to act, ending up staring out in to the emptiness. For me, nothing was the same after I did leave the cinema. I know that it sounds like a cliché, but I tell you, it is not. Some of these people were laughing before they sat down, but the haunting beginning of the movie did wake everyone up. Every day you do wake up, when you are working you do hurry away; maybe you take your children with you to leave them at the nearby kindergarten. If it is a holiday, maybe you are of to meet some friends. In the evening you come home, you are cooking and eating. Maybe you do sit down with your wife and kids watching a good TV-show. When the night comes, you are wishing your child's a good night's sleep before you go to bed. It is not easy for you to know what is going on inside the apartment of your neighbour. The time that pass from the beginning to the end is the time the director Lukas Moodysson have to convince you that the reality is not as good as you may think, or maybe you already know, all to well.

The reality of leading character Lilja becomes slowly a part of your reality. You can choose to see Lilja in two different points of view. You can see her as a part of a fairly tale, and nothing more, than her life story will disappear after the movie in your shower. Or you may see her as she is; a picture of what life can do with people who are not as lucky as you, a picture of other girls in the same situation as she. The great acting of the 15 year old Russian actress Oksana Akinsjina makes it possible. I did almost forget that she is not Lilja when I did see the movie, it is heartbreaking when she is crying, and when she is happy her smile is the most wonderful you have seen that day. But a few minutes later you may see pain in her eyes. If you are thinking about what is happing in the movie, you will understand her reactions. When it is painful then she cries without hope, when it is too painful she doesn't seems to react at all (exactly like you!) and you don't need to imagine to feel the pain she have inside.

The one that will become more close to her than anyone else is the street kid and male leading character Volodja act by the 12 year old Artiom Bogutjarskij (his first movie). I have worked with street children and his acting is very authentic. When everything falls apart for Lilja, Volodja becomes her last hope, he is never leaving her in her mind he is always close. He is the one who is always there, the one that catches her when she falls. Lukas said in an interview that Volodja are a shape of Jesus in the end you will understand. These parts are telling about the dreams of Lilja, whom makes it easier to understand her vision of hope. Lukas is the best Swedish director now and maybe of all time. The integrity of his actors is intact, that he manages to do it in a movie like this shows how good as a director he is. He has a moving respect for Oksana and the way he cares about her integrity is the thing that makes this movie worth looking. His manuscript is trustworthy and don't have any illogical lacks. Nothing is darker than it could be in the reality. All characters are three dimensional and even the evil characters are human, even the victims are not just victims.

You may wonder if the reality is this dark. In a article in a Swedish newspaper Lukas Moodyson told that he had spoken with a social worker and he was told that some mothers do sell their own kids for 1 £ to the sex industry. Though the movie is fictional and not about her, many of the memorable things that are happening to Lilja in the movie did happen to Dangoule Rasalaite from Latvia between the 17th September 1999 and the 10th January 2000. Lukas read about her in an article. The reality is always worse than the fiction.

The young actors do carry the weight of the movie with grace. Their acting against each other is moving, it is a special chemistry between them. Lukas has the gift of finding the right persons for the characters in all is movies, and Lilja 4-ever is not an exception. Last Monday Lilja forever won 5 out of 6 gold beagles (the most important Swedish film award) it was nominated to (Artiom was also nominated for best performance by an actor). The awards it won were for best movie, best picture, best manuscript, best direction, and the most important of them all, best performance by an actress. Trafficking is the third biggest illegal industry in the world; it makes this movie so important. Lukas Moodysson and Oksana did manage to wake up this nation, to show that our reality is not as good as we thought. We can see it in the reactions of the cinema public, how people are talking about it afterwards, and in the newspapers. The Swedish government are working for the possibility to show this movie in schools all over the former Sovjet Union. Lukas has said that if this movie can convince one girl to make other decisions than Lilja and to many other young girls; this movie was worth making.

This movie is worth more than all the awards it has won and all the awards it will win. This movie can change your point of view, it is that message of hope it brings.

/Josef Lundström

I wasn't surprised by how perfect this film is from the first second to the last, since it's directed by Lukas Moodysson. Different than Tillsammans and Fuckin Åmål in style, but still absolutely fascinating. I could find only one minor flaw, which is Lilya's make-up after the fall. But everything else was wonderful. I hadn't heard of Oksana Akinshina before, but I have a strong feeling I will in the near future. She's really good. I was also amazed by the acting of the little boy.

The frames come so strong that you start to empathize with Lilya after some point. By the end of the film, I was feeling like she was my sister and I wanted to knock those procurers' heads off. I've heard the plot is based on a true story of a Lithuanian girl. I think it's not based on one single true story, it's rather a blend of several true stories. There are many Lilyas, Natalias, Annas out there who are suffering a similar fate. It's so very sad to see how those innocent girls grow into prostitutes just because they're born in some particular country.

Anyone with a heart will be touched and anyone with a taste on movies will be stunned by this movie. I'll buy the DVD as soon as it's available. It's a must have for any collection. One of the rare films I would watch more than once. Total 10.

Director Lukas Moodysson has achieved a film that is so moving that it is hard to forget it after leaving the theater. Images come back into one's mind about this story about this girl. The tragedy of her life is something to be shocked and alarmed.

To think there are out there, in the so-called civilized world, people that take advantage of girls like Lilja is mind boggling. Lilja's mother has to be one of the worst monsters ever presented in a film. This woman abandons her 16 year old daughter because she has found a meal ticket with a man that will probably end up leaving her as well.

Lilja is beautifully portrayed by Oksana Akinshina. The actress and her character disappear in front of your eyes. The story is very true as thousands of naive girls are exported from what it was the old Soviet Union to other countries in order to force them into prostitution. This story is constantly in the news, yet more and more young girls are duped into going abroad with the promise of highly paid jobs that exist only for the people who exploit them.

Her only friend is Volodya, also a very sad boy who is thrown out of his own house by an abusive father. Volodya and Lilja form a bond as they cling to one another. The little boy is street wise; he knows the fate that awaits Lilja in Sweden. Their friendship is the only thing they both have.

The sad part of the film is the realization that so called "normal" and perfectly "respectful" people are the same ones that brutalize these children. They use Lilja to satisfy their sexual appetites, then discard her like yesterday's trash. To know that there are people like that in our society is a very sad commentary about our world.

Contrary to what many people have commented about the film, I thought that in spite of the tragedy of Lilja's and Volodya's lives, it had a very positive ending because both are free to run around in a better place together, which is not a luxury most of us have on our time in this planet.

Mr. Moodysson gives us a film that will shock; he dares to go where others wouldn't. A job well done..

I've said it before and I'll say it again: the best movies never get the attention that they deserve. Take for instance this "Lilja 4-ever". It has never been in any large movie theater and is only shown on festivals or on specialized TV stations that broadcast more non-commercial movies. That's also how I got to see it. I knew about this movie, but had never been able to give it a try, until two days ago when it was finally shown on national television.

Lilja is a 16 year old Estonian girl who will move with her mother and her mother's new boyfriend to the USA. But when it's about time to leave, her mother tells her that she can't come with them right now. She will have to stay for a while, following them to the USA afterward and until then her mother will send her money. But once they are gone, it quickly gets clear that they have abandoned Lilja and don't want to see her ever again. She doesn't really have anyone to take care of her and has only one real friend, the young boy Volodja. Completely out of money, she decides to sell the only thing that she has left, her body. She picks up older men in a disco until one day she meets Andrej, a nice boy of her own age. She falls deeply in love with him and when he tells her that she can come with him to Sweden to find a well-payed job and a beautiful apartment so she can start an entire new life far away of all the misery, she is convinced that for once and for all her luck has changed...

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.

"Lilja 4-ever" isn't exactly a movie that will make you happy. I would even say that its story will leave you behind completely devastated, but will also keep you thinking about Lilja for days after you've seen it. That's what happened to me and that's something that I haven't experienced too often yet. If you are strong enough to cope with the hard reality, then you should definitely give this movie a try. In my opinion there is only one appropriate rating for a movie like this one and that is 10/10!!!

A tale of angels, abandoned and set amongst the devils of this world. And of how light can pierce even the darkest of places.

Haunting, harrowing. And beautiful.

As one, who grew up in communism and still lives in Eastern Europe, I find the movie as real as it gets. It's very general and yet very accurate. The events shown in this movie actually happened and happen in every town from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea. Lilja is my neighbor, too.

I am a guy who had no tear in his eyes for years. But last night, when I saw the movie, I cried like a baby. It felt like killing those people with my own bare hands.

I could never watch porn again.

Catch22 used to be my favorite book. Now I start hating it.

I went to see this movie with very high expectations but left the cinema a bit dissapointed. I expected a movie that should touch you into the bones and at the same time tell you a good story you will remember for a long time. It surely touches you and you can't leave whithout feeling a bit sad, but the story was not only a bit slow, it never happened anything unexpected and all the time you knew exactly what was going to happen further on in the film. If you want to see a film that has all that i expected of this one see "requiem for a dream" instead. Although i should recommend this movie because it takes a problem to the surface that shouldn't be forgotten.

Ëèëÿ íàâñåãäà - White trafficking, Russian mafia, downfall of the Eastern Bloc, poverty, western cultural invasion, excruciating, puking... all these words exploded from my head when I was reading the blurb on the poster. But my tongue was tied, speechless.

It's a universal cruelty that the rich take it all. If Russia were a rich country, would their women be forced to go around the world to sell their bodies for bread? Would they be deceived so easily when people tell them there is a better life waiting for them in another land? Lukas Moodysson is very honest to expose the sheer tragedy of how poverty pushes a young life to the River Styx. Fortunately, the appearance of the guardian angel Volodya somehow mercifully simmers the glaciated senses.

I guess I have lived in comfort for too long, and so unconsciously silly, I picked this movie on the second day of the Chinese New Year and also the second day of my birthday. Tears were oozing out from my heart why I saw Lilja being devastated in Sweden. A holiday of pain I had.

Watching the film, I suddenly remember a tragedy. In 1994, a New Zealander lawyer, Gary Alderdice, who was a well-known socialite and Queen's Counsel in the former British Hong Kong, was found brutally killed in Vladivostok, Russia with a 20-year-old Russian prostitute, Natalya Samofalova whom he got to know in the former Portuguese enclave Macau. The power of the underworld in these countries is so big that people cannot imagine.

When tyrants are gone, is it for sure that people will have a better life? Alexander Kerner (Good bye, Lenin!), you are a rare lucky star.

Lilja 4-Ever is an excellent example of Swedish hypocrisy and condescension at its very worst. This film is a revolting mix of kiddie porn and holier-than-thou sentimentalism, for people who want to feel aware, concerned and superior, but also want to get the secret thrills of the rape scenes. The scenes with Lilja and Volodna with angel wings on their backs, on the other hand, were simply beyond ridiculous.

Another thing about this film that drives me up the wall is the borderline-racist way it depicts all Russians: greedy, uncaring and alcoholic. And I don't speak Russian, but I know several people who do (some of them native speakers) and those of them who've seen this film say that the Russian dialogue is totally unrealistic. I've been told that especially teenagers would never in reality talk the way they do in this movie.

The problem of child trafficking is real, of course, and something should be done about it. Watching this film and feeling like you've become a better person for,however, it is not the answer.

One final related note: the director of this film, Lucas Moodysson, was among the figureheads of a movement for outlawing patronizing protitutes. In other words, in Sweden prostitutes are allowed by law to offer their services, but the men who hire them are committing a crime. I suppose it's possible that the people who supported the law partially believed their own claims about how it was supposed to help sex workers, especially immigrants. However, as anyone with half a brain can guess, the results were exactly the opposite: prostitution went even further underground and ruthless pimps, such as the one in Lilja 4-Ever, now have more power than ever. Prostitutes, on the other hand, are in a desperate situation: they are paid less, cannot decide for themselves the conditions in which they work and are unable to choose their own customers. The idea that someone would have the gall to make a film supposedly calling your attention to a problem, and at the same time advocating a law that makes that very problem much worse makes me sick.

Lilja 4-ever is an excellently-crafted film created by and for Swedes to help stimulate public debate and redress the issue of the vulnerability of immigrant children. It's a cruel, enlightening, compelling watch for anyone in the West, but it's most definitely not a movie for escapism, it's not an After School Special, and it's a world away from the endless contemporary assault/insult of bald neocon propaganda on Anglo-American screens.

Unless you're very, very dead inside, Lilja 4-ever will horrify you, move you to tears, and leave you speechless...at least in its immediate aftermath. And if you are dead inside, the implicit subject is inexorable capitalist alienation and trauma, so why not catch a representation of your own inner life on film? Maybe you can work it into a drinking game.

Based on actual, turn-of-the-21st-century suicides of escaped post-Soviet child prostitutes in the suburbs of Sweden, Lilja 4-ever is a well-done drama, featuring terrific acting--especially by Oksana Akinshina and Artyom Bogucharsky. It presents moody and stark cinematography, fine script-writing, and solid direction. Lilja 4-ever is not a documentary, but its subject is relentlessly grim and real: the tragic personal results of the continued, desperate corrosion of Eastern European society and its tacit, rapaciously opportunistic exploitation in the isolated, commuter highway-bound suburbs of the West. For its success in making these links visible and cinematic, Lilja 4-ever is outstanding.

I saw Lilja 4-ever when it was released in Stockholm in 2002. You can't watch this particular movie waiting for some good one-liners to repeat to the guys around the water cooler. You may not be able to identify with Lilja. You don't need to feel like she could be your girlfriend. For this movie to work, and to grasp who Lilja is, you need to be able to feel human compassion, sympathy and empathy, and to recognize and appreciate the drama in our socio-economic connections.

I do have to admit that I'm not an "art-type" movies or classic movies fan (i.e. Casablanca, Gone with the Wind, etc...); maybe that's why I managed to see Lilja 4 ever later than expected - to be precise last night...

What can I say? The movie impressed me so much that I saw it again trying to tune myself in order to observe each little detail that might escaped me during first view. Everything in this movie is so great and well done that after second view I gave it 10 out of 10... a grade that I gave only to another movie (The Godfather I). Oksana did a demonstration of art in playing Lilja proving that she easily can beat great names as Nicole Kidman or Julia Roberts that are earning million times more and acting million times worst. Her note 10/10... sorry, 20/10.

If I would compare Kill Bill vol. 1 with Lilja (as I seen Kill Bill got so high grades) I would give to Kill Bill 1,5 and to Lilja 10.

Again, Europe beats the hell out of US, showing that the real art of cinema has nothing to do with having hundred of millions of $ budget and millions of special effects.

Will Lukas Moodyson be the Andy Warhol of cinematography? It seems like he's on its way to achieve it as film after film Moodyson seems to find a subject that is shocking but stays a part of the society we cann't deny. "Lilja 4-ever" puts us back in some godforgotten village that used to be the powerful USSR. A place at where nothing really happens and where the youth just has to face violence and drugs (cheap medicine like syrup against coughing). Lilja is left alone by her mother who immigrates to the US and how much she defends, Lilja ends up as a childwhore. The movie is hard (the first seconds of the movie with Rammstein's "Mein herz brennt" already is unforgettable) and Moodyson does nothing special to shock his audience...the facts are just there and you can do with it what you want. A masterpiece.

Most of the time the films stand for an escape from the real life truths and sees world through rose colored spectacles. But in this film, the things are opposite. The film exposes the surreal truths of life and is very sad and disturbing. Right the moment the film begins, the story delves into the ruthless situations our 16 year old protagonist is exposed to. The film shows the anguishes of a sixteen year old girl full of zeal, who is cheated through fate and is a victim of the cruelty of the real world. The character and the situations created in the film look so real that you are filled with a feeling of disgust and agony; which is the real power of this film. The film has many unlovable and disturbing moments and will linger in your mind for days to come. So if you're anticipating a film to uplift your moods, this is not the one you ought to go for. But concerning a good film exposing the real picture of a society, this one you should definitely watch.

Rating: 2 stars out of 4

In the former Soviet Union, 16-year old Lilya (Oksana Akinshina) lives with her mother and new boyfriend, and is excitedly awaiting a relocation to the United States. It turns out her mother doesn't want her there, and takes off with the promise of Lilya following later, leaving Lilya alone in her apartment. Her aunt then throws her out, giving her the run-down flat of a recently deceased old man, and Lilya finds herself without any money, and only the young Volodya (Artyom Bogucharskiy) as a friend. Desperate, she discovers how easy it is to make money from whoring herself out, and then meets the handsome Andrei (Pavel Ponomaryov), who invites her to live with him in Sweden. Despite Volodya's warnings, she decides to take his offer, but it soon becomes apparent that there is more to his Andrei's promises.

Based on a true story of a young girl who was trafficked to Sweden only to find herself imprisoned and forced to have sex for money, director Lukas Moodysson's film is set mostly in a very grim reality. Similar both to the social realism of Ken Loach, and the relentless and uncomfortable degrading of it's lead female character that is so prominent in Lars von Trier's films, Moodysson film is certainly brutal. As Lilya (played with a tragic naivety by Akinshina) is being abused in Sweden, we are treated to a POV montage of the various perverts and abusers, sweating and breathing into the camera. We live through the whole thing through the eyes of Lilya, a character of almost operatic tragedy, who suffers for the sins of others in a country ravaged by poverty, glue-sniffing and boredom.

But Moodysson wisely doesn't keep everything grim. In the final third, as Lilya suffers the most, the film often turns dream-like and fairy- tale. He introduces angels and dream sequences, as Lilya finds herself drifting through existence in an almost coma-like state, with her dreams and fantasies her only relief. These scenes (and there are only a few) are not flashy or whimsical, but are subtle and simplistic, in a similar way that Wim Wenders portrayed his angels in Wings of Desire (1987). It's a powerful tool that makes Lilya's plight all the more profound. The film plays out almost like a cruel fairy-tale, only set very much in the real world. Lilya 4-Ever is a hard film to sit through, but is rich in humanity, even though most of its characters are certainly devoid of it.

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The grim reality of poverty and social sickness of eastern Europe is mercilessly harrowing and heartbreaking, as we follow 16-year old Russian girl Lilja being abandoned by her mother, used by her aunt, raped, humiliated and eventually tricked and forced into prostitution. The latter account of the even grimmer phenomenon of sex trafficking of minors within the EU is often unbearable to watch in Moodyson's brutally honest writing and directing. No sentimentality as far as the eye can see. For me as a Swede, one of the film's strengths is also the absence of familiar acting faces. Lilja's fate is the main core and it simply is an unforgettable drama. So is Akinshina's performance.

7 out of 10 from Ozjeppe.

I am not easily moved by movies, but after I saw this movie, I was *distraught* for weeks. It stuck with me and touched me. It made me realize how spoiled I actually am, and how I take so many of the wonderful things in my life for granted. It hurts me to know that there are children like Lilja and Volodnya all over the world. Beautiful, kind, sweet, intelligent, worthwhile people who are just thrown away or exploited. And as for the adults - what pushes people to such cruelty? Whether it's the choice to abandon your child in the cold, or to pay for sex with an underage girl, what drives people to such inhumane behavior? This movie doesn't give any answers. It simply portrays a horrible, disturbing nightmare that is an everyday reality for millions of people all over the world. This movie is so heartbreaking, but so important to watch. It truly changed the way I look at my own life and the world around me. Everyone should see it.

There is no hope if you are young and defenseless. Just kill yourself, and you'll go straight to heaven-that is the message that I got. However, the plot is slightly more interesting than that, although, as I stated earlier, there really is no hope and things will inevitably get from bad to worst. I must admit that I will never learn to appreciate Moodysson's cinematography. It annoys me as no other Scandinavian Dogma-95-influenced cinematography does. I actually believe that he tries oh-so-hard to prove to someone (God?Scandinavian audience?Lars von Trier) that this is the group he associates himself with. The acting by the first-time child actors is good, as it is in most Moodysson's films. And yet, the benefit of being able to understand Russian clearly demonstrated that a)those Russian kids are directed by a foreigner (duh), and b)their parts were not written by someone who is very fluent in Russian. Their performances were not wooden-but their delivery kind of was. However, most of the actors in this film were a pleasure to watch. Overall, 7/10, just for the skillful and honest (albeit, annoying at times) presentation of the tragedy.