Film: Lilya 4-Ever
Release date: 22nd September 2003
Certificate: 18
Running time: 109 mins
Director: Lukas Moodysson
Starring: Oksana Akinshina, Artyom Bogucharsky, Lyubov Agapova, Liliya Shinkaryova, Elina Benenson
Genre: Crime/Drama
Studio: Metrodome
Format: DVD
Country: Sweden/Denmark
Lilya 4-Ever is the third film from Swedish director Lukas Moodysson, and is the story of one girl’s belief that she is destined for happiness within an area of the former Soviet Union where the prospect of prostitution and sex trafficking are forever looming. The narrative of a girl's descent into prostitution may be a clichéd narrative of world cinema but it doesn't stop Lilya 4-Ever from being all the more harrowing.
Opening to the sound of industrial death metal, we are introduced to Lilya (played by Oksana Akinshina), who wanders bruised and disorientated, lost and alone, in a foreign city. Coming across a bridge, she prepares to jump off onto the busy highway below in an act of suicide. Fading to black, the film resumes three months earlier in the former Soviet Union to an impoverished area of Estonia.
Lilya is elated at the prospect of moving to America with her mother and her new ‘boyfriend’. Unfortunately, after a family meeting, it transpires that the mother is to move off to the US without Lilya, who will be left under the care of a cruel and seemingly uncaring aunt. Left on her own, Lilya is forced into coming up with a way to support herself, which comes in the form of prostitution.
Forming a friendship with Volodya, a local boy and son of an abusive alcoholic father, Lilya manages to maintain her composure as she makes enough money to live independently. After forming a relationship with a Swedish gentleman, Lilya is asked to move to Sweden with him. It seems as if her dreams are finally becoming true…
From the harrowing opening sequence, it is clear that Lilya 4-Ever is not going to be an easy film to watch. The film is based on real-life events where 16 year old Danguole Rasalaite jumped off a bridge after being transported from her home in Lithuania to Sweden under the allusion that she was going to have a job, but in reality was pimped out and sexually abused upon a daily basis. She died three days later after jumping, and her story was pieced together by three letters she was carrying at the time.
For director Lukas Moodysson, it marks a startling change. His debut film, Show Me Love, out grossed Titanic at the box office in his native Sweden, and his last picture, Together, was an oddball hippy comedy of sorts with dark satirical undertones. By contrast, Lilya 4-Ever is a fairytale set within a gritty urban area. There are monsters and angels, an evil aunt, a loyal and dependable friend, and even a handsome prince. Lilya is effectively a princess who believes unquestionably in this narrative that her luck is destined to change, dreaming that her prince charming will come and whisk her far away from the misery that surrounds her. It will, of course, lead to her downfall, and the audience knows this, but the film’s predictability only adds to its tragedy.
The more innocent scenes between Lilya and Volodya form the core of the story and feel reminiscent of the character interactions seen in the films of Shane Meadows and Ken Loach. That is, two characters living in impoverishment but still finding happiness in their lives through their friendship. Lilya herself played by Oksana Akinshina can, at times, appear to be a spoiled brat, as she flaunts her success in the faces of friends and neighbours, and you can sometimes forget that she is just a kid.
Next to the Millennium trilogy, however, Lilya 4-Ever illuminates Sweden’s misogynist undercurrents. Less critical, and more an outright condemnation, Moodysson is on the warpath against his native homeland on this front. Sometimes, the film feels as if it is going too far - the film’s Ramstein opening, for example, is a particularly bombastical approach (you may ask why a Swedish film would open to German death metal). Though it does add an element of confusion, you do wonder how Lilya would have any conception of this kind of music.
The ugliest moments of the movie come in the form of a series of montage sequences, in which we witness, from Lilya’s perspective, a parade of older men raping her. The sheer number of men is sickening, the whole experience invasive and completely without passion, like the audience is being raped themselves. It is no understatement to say that these scenes may just be enough to put you off sex for life. Even after the film has finished, these sequences will linger, as you realize that someone somewhere on this planet will be experiencing this horror for real.
Lilya 4-Ever, is not for the faint of heart. Though there are moments of tenderness to balance the unremitting horror and overwhelming sense of hopelessness, the film is very angry, and as Lilya is buoyed on by delusional dreams is to the audience’s own distress. It is certainly a hard film to recommend, as any film that deals with child prostitution will be, but then this is a subject that cannot be left out of minds. CPH
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