A change 4 the better

Swede Lukas Moodysson may have gone all warm, fuzzy and gender-bending with the swinging good times of Together, his follow up to the highly successful Show Me Love; but one couldn’t imagine what an impact Lukas could make with Lilya 4-Ever.

From the opening sequence of a driving Rammstein rhythm fuelled requiem and the sensation of the camera trailing after a battered, bruised and clearly distressed young girl erratically fleeing down a road in a panicked state, Lilya 4-Ever is a film that never lets go, it refuses to expire. From the unfathomable pits of despair this film only leads in one direction from here and that’s straight down.

Lilya (Oksana Akinshina) is 16, naïve and a young girl unsure about the ways of the world. Due to circumstances beyond her control Lilya’s finding out that even at such a tender age she’s going to have to grow up, and fast. Living in a desolate, drab and archaic Russian flat with her parents Lilya is overjoyed at the prospect of a new start and a new life in the United States, she gleefully lets everyone know and gives her schoolteacher the royal salute such is her disdain for her education. But her parents have other ideas, they’re planning a new start but Lilya is not to be a part of the picture.

This news naturally horrifies Lilya who can’t imagine life without her mother. Their hasty departure and abandonment of Lilya sends her into a baseball slide dive (beautifully captured on film in a slow-motion style impact) into a pool of mud, the expression on her face an indescribable pool of grief stricken despair.

With her guardians gone an Aunt imposes her will upon Lilya but quickly loses interest in her due to Lilya’s rebellious behaviour, discarding her education, sniffing glue and dispensing medication a previous tenant in her new abode kept amongst her friends. Her closest friend is a 14 year old boy Volodya (Artyom Bogucharsky), the dangers of his physically abusive father sees him spend most of his time in Lilya’s company and sleeping in her flat.

Even though Lilya has a roof over her head, there’s little else. With no income comes hunger and amenities to the flat being shut down. The last piece of flippant advice her aunt has for Lilya when she begs her for money is that she should go to Moscow and spread her legs like her mother did.

Those words must have made an impression on Lilya. She’s drawn into a world of nightclubs and teenage prostitution in a desperate move just for survival. Throughout these insurmountable perils Lilya never loses her sense of naivety foolishly entrusting a friendly stranger Andrei (Pavel Ponomaryov) with his promises of a dream escape existence in Sweden and a job that will earn more money than a doctor in Russia could only imagine to make.

Lilya 4-Ever is one of the most soul-crushingly emotional films to have come along in a while. It’s most impressive aspect is the amazing performances Lukas Moodysson has drawn from his two lead young actors.

Oskana Akinshina gives one of the most astonishing heart-wrenching performances seen as Lilya that belies her tender years. Although Akinshina clearly eclipses any other performance in the film, Artyom Bogucharsky impresses greatly as Lilya’s friend Volodya.

Even with its added element of fantasy that could potentially have ruined (but actually enhances) such a triumphant piece of filmmaking, Moodysson has directed and written a film worthy of top shelf status. It outdoes either of his previous films by a long, long margin.
Notably Nathan Larson provides the film score; he obviously knows when he’s onto a good film, Boys Don’t Cry was a film with equally high emotional impact that he also scored.
An amazing film with one of the best lead performances from a young actor you’ll ever see, Lilya is film destined to remain locked in your psyche ‘4-Ever’.

Richard Scott