Lilya 4-Ever (2002)

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Writer/Director: Lucas Moodysson

Stars: Oksana Akinshina, Liliya Shinkaryova, Artyom Bogucharsky, Lyubov Agapova, Elina Benenson, Pavel Ponomaryov, Tomasz Neuman


This is a powerful film about the international sexual exploitation of children told from a very personal level. 


Abandoned when her mother leaves for an opportunity at a better life in the US, 16-year-old Lilya (Oksana Akinshina) is left on her own with only the grudging, intermittent assistance of an aunt (Liliya Shinkaryova) and a 10-year-old boy (Artyom Bogucharsky) for a friend.
 

As her prospects diminish, she gets into prostitution and soon becomes easy pickings for predatory entrepreneurs who ship her overseas with the promise of a good job when all she really gets is a string of johns and imprisonment in a hotel room.
 

Naturalistic performances by the actors and a mostly unsentimental approach to the subject matter allow the pathos of the situation to reveal itself subtly, which makes it that much more heartbreaking. 


I think I understand what director and writer Lucas Moodyson was trying to accomplish with some of the fantasy sequences, but I felt that a strictly realistic approach would have been more effective.






















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