The greatest movie ever made..!

Gripping story with well-crafted characters

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

This is a messed up film. Lilya is already living in poverty but when her mom left, her aunt who takes care of her downgraded her house to even smaller house. Lilya became a hooker to support herself because her mom severed all ties with her. Lilya is then tricked into prostitution. Now, her only friend felt betrayed and killed himself. Lilya got depressed sex after sex and she dreamt of her friend telling to not give up. She managed to escaped but still gave up in the end because she couldn't take it anymore. Sometimes, dying is actually better than living.

This is yet another exploitation movie. Pick something that will impress the simple audience. Throw in some more drama. Play on the stereotypes so the simple audience won't find itself challenged. And sell. Simple. And effective. With dark shots to masquerade as art.The acting is bad. The characters are badly drawn. And everything reeks of the tabloid culture of the production team. A danish-Swedish production about a country where there are cities larger than the two originating countries. Yet in this "some place in Soviet Union" everybody is Russian. Even if the true case is from one of the Baltic countries. Who cares? A real drama would be to say Ikea is Danish.And if there were some stone hearted people in the audience, enter the angels and the icons. They are the modern new age version that does not offend, not the Byzantine style that might offend.Contact me with Questions, Comments or Suggestions ryitfork @ bitmail.chSo in the end the story is secondary. The drama is secondary. Yet there is a little part for any stereotype. You have the Russians poor and ready to do anything. You have the story of the mother abandoning the let's say child for a man and his fortune. Drugs leading to prostitution. And the abuse! Oh, yes, who thought that making prostitution legal would mean anything than eternal hell? So the public can go home and think about it: the evils must be banned be it drugs, prostitution or poor people. Better send bibles and icons as they don't have enough in Eastern Europe.

'Lilya 4-Ever' is hugely bleak. You shake your head as Lilya (Oksana Akinshina) is manipulated and abused. I read somewhere that this film is 'torture porn', nonsense, despite the sleazy, damning impression it leaves on you, it's a very tastefully made film. It's unremittingly depressing, but always tasteful.It's somewhat one-track in its storytelling; almost everyone is callous, abusive and indifferent about Lilya's well-being, none more so than her mother, who deserts her, initiating Lilya's dive into veritable squalor. I can understand how these people are going to be embittered by their tough, filthy neighbourhood, but some of the characters' cruelty and selfishness border on evil. Her only friend is Volodya (Artyom Bogucharsky), a young admirer of hers who is always thinking in her best interest. The young pair give terrifically natural performances, which help achieve the film's aura of hyperrealism.Much like films such as 'Import/Export', the camera captures the striking, achromatic landscapes of Eastern European housing projects. The scale of its anaemic bleakness that is visually arresting.The total deprivation in this film makes one appreciative of not only family and friends but basic commodities too. Lilya is thrown into a world of abject poverty, where the living conditions are so desperate that we see her attempting to sell her few, worthless possessions on a street corner. Lilya and Volodya frequently talk about a better life, but they're both so tragically far away from their fantasies. Inevitably, she discovers that prostitution is the most lucrative way of assuring she has the resources to be able to live and maybe even achieve her dreams.Throughout the film, I wanted to reach into the screen and cradle the sweet little Oksana Akinshina, attacking anyone who wanted to exploit her for whatever disgusting purpose. The film puts an innocent, sympathetic face on prostitution, an industry that's unfairly maligned and condemned by society. In fact, the film puts an innocent, sympathetic face on the underclass; its candid hyperrealism gives you a vivid portrait of total and utter destitution, helping you understand and empathise with their lamentable lives. www.hawkensian.com

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. There are two scenes that you will remember. The first shows us Lilja's face when the men are on top of her. She just lies there, helpless, without any reason to live. The second shows us the faces of the men that are on top of her. This montage lets us see the ugliness of those people, what kind of animals the world knows. 'Lilja 4-ever' is a sad movie, but a good movie. Although we probably know that things like this happen, it is not bad to realize that from time to time. 'Fucking Åmål' director Lukas Moodysson makes sure we do that with his movie. The music, as well as the way the camera was handled added very much more to the film. In the opening, the music came on so loud and the camera so shaky, you almost know the film would be unbearably painful (in more ways than one).Powerful as the film is, there are some parts which are admittedly over the top. Having Lilja and Volodya play ball with wings on the roof top is quite whimsical actually. But all said, this was definitely a film worth watching