Lilja 4-ever

I needed to get something off my chest in order to be able to get out of the couch after watching "Lilja 4-ever." Lukas Moodysson achieved here his best work with his most international success, besides earning the "Guldbagge" award for the best Swedish film of 2002.

A very well deserved award: Moodysson delivered here his best work. I said that already, but it is worth repeating because there's no doubt about it: a very sad story, devastating, unpredictable and violent. To quote a message that appears at the end of the film, this is a tribute to all child victims of prostitution.

A postcard signed from the poorest sewers of Russia, a neglected neighborhood where survival is imposed on each one's life. Lilja begins the film alone, abandoned by her own mother; without realizing it, the girl starts a journey very similar to her mother’s, showing that there are people who cannot be saved because they were born with misery in their genes and are taunted by the constant stalking of marginalization.

Moodysson narrates a depressing story, as lapidary as the great melodramas of Lars VonTrier. But ...Surprise! In "Lilja 4-ever" there is also room for hope, a light that is almost a shadow, a music that is an elegy.

Many believe that Moodysson manipulates the characters and try to make poetry out of the elements that can be taken out of the ugly. Personally, Moodysson keeps exploring the child psyche as he had done in "Fucking Amal", with a more defined style, away from the mixed messages of "Mammoth" and from the visually stimulating but poorly narrated experiment that "A hole in my heart” is.

A cult film and almost a masterpiece, a criticism to the Swedish welfare. Missing this one means missing an important film of the first decade of the XXI century.

Director: Lukas Moodysson

Writer: Lukas Moodysson

Stars: Oksana Akinshina, Artyom Bogucharskiy and Pavel Ponomaryovzd