Lilja 4-ever is a hard film to watch because it shows the raw and naked reality of the world. There is no superhero to save you. The viewer is sure that the world is cruel and inhabited by disgusting men and women. It is portrayed as in the conversation between Rocky and his son in the movie Rocky Balboa (2006): "The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life".
The writer and director is the swedish Lukas Moodysson, from Fucking Åmål (Show me Love - 1998) and Tillsammans (Together - 2000). The story chronicles the life of a 16 years old Lilja (Oksana Akinshina), who lives with her mother (Lyubov Agapova) in a poor and dreary suburb somewhere in the former Soviet Union. Lilja is beautiful, rebellious, unexpectedly devout, kneeling always before her favorite photo of an angel with a child, and above all, she is naive. She and her mother would emigrate to the United States with her mother's new husband, but her dreams of a better life crumbles when she finds out that she will be left behind, under the guardianship of her aunt (Lilija Sjinkarjova), to eventually join them later. As the time passes by and she doesn't receive letters or money, there is a feeling that she was abandoned. With no help from her aunt, she is forced to move into a tiny apartment without electricity or heating. Desperate, she receives aid from Volodya (Artyom Bogucharsky), a boy of only 11 years old, her only friend. Disillusioned and broke, the girl meets and falls in love with Andrei (Pavel Ponomarjov), who offers her employment and a chance of a better life in Sweden.
The work of the cameras was made in such a way that even not seeing some scenes we feel and suffer all the hardships aside with the protagonist. Using only the suggestion (the implicit feature that was given) the director reached and impacted the viewer more than if he had used explicit images. We identify ourselves in such a way with the central character that we want to warn her of the dangers in every step she takes towards her ruin. Oksana Akinshina, in the leading role, and Artyom Bogucharsky, in the supporting role, give us an interpretation worthy of take the hat off.
Apart the denunciation of the tragedy that accompanied the lives of millions of people who have been abandoned to a bitter and inhuman life with the end of socialism and the break up of the USSR, in what children are the most vulnerable victims, there is also a criticism about individualism and loss of social values. The state of men without civil society is nothing else but mere war of all against all...
English title: Lilya 4-ever
