Greetings gentle readers, welcome to another installment of the Sunday Morning Movie. Today it’s a tragic one, Lilya 4-Ever, the story of a desperate young woman in post-Soviet Russia who is led into a life of prostitution. Apologies for the lack of thumbnails, for some reason they aren’t showing up automatically has they have in the past, no idea why.
https://youtu.be/hbvST8hVOrg?si=31VbdzAsKWJYAKwn
and next week’s film: Paprika:
https://tubitv.com/movies/100006197/paprika
This requires signing up for Tubi (free) but it’s worth the annoyance.
Reviews of Lilya 4-Ever:
RogerEbert.com says:
The movie, written and directed by Lukas Moodysson, has the directness and clarity of a documentary, but allows itself touches of tenderness and grief. It is so sad to see this girl, even after weeks of prostitution, saying the Lord’s Prayer in front of a framed drawing of a guardian angel. And there are two fantasy sequences, toward the end, that provide her with an escape, however illusory.
The movie should inspire outrage, but I read of thousands of women from Eastern Europe who are lured into virtual slavery. I hope some of their clients will attend this movie, even if for the wrong reasons, and see what they are responsible for.
Letterboxd says:
Such a bleak, hopeless movie. Any time something slightly good happened, something terrible would happen straight after. I loved Liljia and Volodja’s relationship, felt like the only happy thing about this film. I loved the scene with Liljia and Volodja talking about life on the rooftop. Also, Rammstein is in the film so bonus points
and
Some people have children and, in the end, they don’t want them. They abandon them, and if society doesn’t allow them to leave their kids or kick them out, they become deeply toxic instead. They turn into monsters you’re forced to live with. When you grow up in that kind of environment, you end up completely lost, unsure of who you are or what to do with your life. The world feels huge, cruel, and overwhelming, and you’re fighting every day just to survive.
Lilya didn’t choose to sell her body because she wanted to. She did it because she needed to eat and survive. It was painfully clear that this wasn’t her desire. She only wanted a chance at a better, normal life, but survival left her no other option. She was betrayed by the people she trusted. Everyone used her and took advantage of her and showed a shocking level of cruelty by refusing to see the human being behind her actions.
Lilya didn’t deserve any of this. She deserved safety, care, and a good life. What makes the film even more heartbreaking is knowing that this story isn’t fiction for many girls in the real world. There are countless Lilyas out there. The world can be incredibly dark and evil, and it’s easy to understand why she eventually lost the will to live.
I hope that anyone whose life mirrors Lilya’s finds peace, whether they survived or not. And for those still trapped in this brutal human trafficking system, I truly hope they find a way out and a chance to heal.
I hope you can see all of this, god.
says:
Lilya 4-Ever is part of an urgent new wave of movies about immigrants and asylum seekers: films like Stephen Frears’ Dirty Pretty Things, Pawel Pawlikowski’s Last Resort and Michael Winterbottom’s outstanding docu-drama In This World – and there is an echo with Winterbottom’s movie when Lilya realises that to a stateless person without rights, “this world” can look more or less the same whatever country you’re in.
But in comparison with Moodysson’s film, each of these recent features softened the blow and sugared the pill with grace notes of compassion and hope. For humane or aesthetic reasons, they shrank from exploring the very worst that human beings can experience. Lilya 4-Ever, frankly, does not.
My take: This is one sad film. As the reviews above indicate, it is unrelenting in its grimness. It’s often hard to watch, between the physical violence and the psychological trauma. But it is true to life. I thought it was especially topical given the state of Ukraine, where doubtless young women are turning to prostitution to survive. Worth one watch: ⭐️
If it’s a little too much, fear not, next week’s film is much more uplifting.Director: Lukas Moodysson
Writer: Lukas Moodysson
Notable Actor: Oksana Akinshina
Plot (Spoilers!):
Lilya(Akinshina) is excited. Her mother is moving to America with her new boyfriend. Lilya expects to come along.
She doesn’t. She is abandoned by her mother to the care of an aged aunt whose first move is to eject Lilya from her apartment and install her in a much smaller, dingier one. Lilya is left to her own devices.
Things spiral downwards from there. She is accused of prostitution and is raped by a gang of local boys. Her only friend is a young boy who is just as desperate as she.
Then hope appears. A handsome stranger comes into her life, spending money on her and taking her on dates. He makes her an offer she cannot refuse. Move to Sweden and work on a vegetable farm. It’s like paradise compared to Russia.
She takes him up on his offer but soon learns it was a ruse. She handed over to a man who immediately prostitutes her out. She is raped and brutalized over and over. Finally, in despair, she jumps off an overpass.
*******Bonus Horror*******
This is an audiobook of Thomas Ligotti’s The Cocoons. Ligotti is in my opinion the best horror writer of all time. He is unlike anyone else I know of, perhaps approached by Lovecraft, my second favorite horror writer.
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I saw this picture maybe 15-20 years ago. I remember it as being very powerful indeed; well worth the (at times difficult) watch.
Timely choice what with Minnesota, LA, the most recent tranche of Epstein files.
Been going on since the beginning of time, but was not as evident and disclosed on screen at the speed of light as it is now.
TPTB really should press the kill switch on devices, its like coverage of the Viet Nam war, and the post-war increased squelching of war coverage.
I guess it’s a blessing that ‘they’ are all also dependent on Le Gizmo, so Hegseth can telegraph vainglorious proclamations of his boo-yeah kick assedness .
This is not in my normal zone for watching, but I’m glad you recommended it, and will dedicate some time to watching.
I would like to recommend another movie that’s quite different. It’s been called the comedy that could not be made today, and it’s now available on YT:
Blazing Saddles https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DpRcKXGZKpw
It’s R rated.
Mel Brooks poking fun at everything and everybody. – very incorrect! (And NSFW.) But honestly, taking a good hard honest look and laughing at ourselves, it’s not always a bad thing.
An honest look at the evils of transactionalism. What else is prostitution but Transactionalism in basic human relations? Take this and “institutionalize” it and we have Epstein and his many fellow “entrepreneurs.” No matter the origins of the enslavements, the result is pure evil. The film shows the human face of this crime against innocence. It’s a big reason why I advocate for the full “liquidation” of human traffickers. They degrade and make profit off of the results.
As has been said before; the measure of a civilization is in its treatment of its weakest members.
Stay safe. Fight Evil.
I think this applies to trad marriage also. He is wage slave, she is home slave, to omit details. Works for some, I am told.
A difference in goals is the defining characteristic.
Sex slavery is focused upon outright exploitation, for its own sake, and the sake of the exploiters.
A traditional marriage is originally focused on creating a functional family, or at least it should. A functioning family produces functioning children. In general, dysfunctional families produce dysfunctional children. In this, the adults involved must make personal sacrifices for the benefit of the growing children and the collective. In sex slavery, the slave makes all of the sacrifices.
Referring to my closing aphorism, children are the weakest members of the society. How we treat our children defines our society.
Nothing is as easy as originally conceived.
Stay safe.