Lilja 4-ever is a 2002 drama film. It is Swedish director Lukas Moodysson's third full length film which marks a sharp change of mood from his previous two films, the uplifting love story Show Me Love and Together, a comedy set in the 1970s. Lilya 4-ever is an unremittingly brutal and realistic story of the downward spiral of Lilya (Oksana Akinshina), a girl in the "former Soviet Union" (actually, modern-day Estonia), whose mother abandons her to...
more
Lilja 4-ever is a 2002 drama film. It is Swedish director Lukas Moodysson's third full length film which marks a sharp change of mood from his previous two films, the uplifting love story Show Me Love and Together, a comedy set in the 1970s. Lilya 4-ever is an unremittingly brutal and realistic story of the downward spiral of Lilya (Oksana Akinshina), a girl in the "former Soviet Union" (actually, modern-day Estonia), whose mother abandons her to move to the United States. The story is based on the life of Danguole Rasalaite and examines the issue of trafficking in human beings and sexual slavery.
The film starts with a figure running desperately towards a motorway bridge, with a factory belching smoke in the background, to a soundtrack of Mein Herz brennt by Rammstein. When the figure turns around the film introduces the audience to Lilya, who has recently been brutally beaten. The film reveals her past.
Lilya lives a fairly bleak life with her mother in a run down apartment block,...
less
