Lilya 4-ever
Encyclopedia
Lilja 4-ever is a 2002
Swedish
drama film. It is director Lukas Moodysson
's third feature film which marks a sharp change of mood from his previous two films, the uplifting love story Show Me Love and Together
, set in the 1970s. Lilja 4-ever is an unremittingly brutal and realistic story of the downward spiral of Lilja, played by Oksana Akinshina
, a girl in the former Soviet Union
whose mother abandons her to move to the United States
. The story is loosely based on a true case and examines the issue of human trafficking
and sexual slavery
.
The film received positive reviews both in Sweden and abroad. It won five Guldbagge Award
s including Best Film, and was nominated for Best Film and Best Actress
at the European Film Awards.
. When the figure turns around the film introduces the audience to Lilja, who has recently been brutally beaten. The film reveals her past.
Lilja lives a fairly bleak life with her mother in a run down apartment block in a squalid, poor town in an unnamed former republic of the Soviet Union (principal filming took place in Paldiski
, Estonia
). For all intents and purposes she is a normal teenage girl (albeit an impoverished one). Lilja's mother tells her they are emigrating to the United States with her new boyfriend, but at the last minute Lilja is left behind, in the care of her aunt. A forced move into a squalid flat (while the Aunt moves herself into the larger, nicer flat that Lilja and her mother had lived in) is only the beginning, and a succession of miseries are heaped upon Lilja. Lilja's best friend encourages her to join her in prostituting herself for extra cash, though Lilja decides not to follow through. However, when the friend's father finds the money the friend claims that she was the one who sat at the bar while Lilja prostituted herself. Not content with ruining Lilja's reputation at home, the story soon goes round school. As Lilja has been abandoned, she now really does have to prostitute herself for money to live. One glimmer of hope is her friend Volodya (Artyom Bogucharsky), abused and rejected by his alcoholic father, with whom she forms a tender protective relationship. She buys Volodya a basketball with money she has earned as a prostitute, but Volodya's father punctures it with a pair of scissors. Another glimmer of hope is Andrei (Pavel Ponomaryov
), who becomes her boyfriend and offers her a job in Sweden
. But all is not what it seems, and only bad things await Lilja when she arrives there.
After arriving in Sweden, she is greeted by her future "employer" (in reality, a pimp) and taken to a nearly empty apartment where he imprisons her. Lilja is raped by the pimp and she is then forced to perform sexual acts for her pimp's clients; all the abuse is seen from Lilja's point of view.
Meanwhile in the former Soviet Union, Volodya commits suicide
, devastated that Lilja had abandoned him to his fate. In the form of an angel, Volodya comes to Lilja to watch over her. On Christmas Day, he transports Lilja to the roof of the apartment, and gives Lilja the world as a present, but she simply finds it cold and unwelcoming. After one escape attempt Lilja is brutally beaten by her pimp, but she then escapes again. Finally, and much to the distress of Volodya (who regrets having killed himself) she commits suicide herself in the continuation of the scene from the beginning of the film by jumping from the bridge.
The film's conclusion shows two alternate versions of events: a. Lilja and Volodya, now both dead, angelic and happily playing basketball on the roof of some tenement building, safe from all harm the world can do to them. b. It is also shown that somehow Lilja was sent back in time to when she made the decision to go to Sweden "with Andrei" (possibly as a result of the deceased Volodya's intervention). In essence she finds herself exactly at the moment she first made the decision, however this time she rejects "Andrei"'s offer to go to Sweden and she and Volodya are shown to presumably live happier lives.
whose case had made headlines in Sweden in 2000. A male acquaintance helped Rasalaite travel to Sweden with the promise of a job in Malmö
. When she arrived, a man referred to as "the Russian," who would become her pimp, took her passport and told her she would have to repay him 20,000 SEK
(US$2410 in 1999; $ today) for travel expenses, and she was forced to prostitute herself for the next month. She escaped from the apartment where she was being held in the rough suburb of Arlöv
, moved to Malmö, and after three months, day after she had been raped by her boyfrend and two other men, on 7 January 2000 jumped from a bridge and died three days later in the hospital. Three letters she was carrying with her unravelled the story. The screenplay was originally supposed to be deeply religious, with Jesus
being a prominent character, walking next to Lilja throughout the story. Moodysson wrote the script in Swedish and then had it translated into Russian.
Production was led by Moodysson's usual studio Memfis Film. Co-producers were Film i Väst
, Sveriges Television
and Zentropa
. Financial support was provided by the Swedish
and Danish Film Institute
s as well as Nordisk Film- & TV-Fond. The budget was 30 million SEK.
During the casting period, Moodysson and the crew interviewed "something like 1000" young applicants for the leading roles. The actors had to improvise on a scenario where they had been grounded and were trying to convince their mother to let them go out. While Artyom Bogucharsky had no previous acting experience, Oksana Akinshina
had already starred in Sergei Bodrov, Jr.
's 2001 crime film Sisters. Moodysson has commented Akinshina as "[not] exactly what I had imagined. She is better than I imagined but different, somehow."
As Moodysson recalls, filming took "something like 40 days" to finish in total. Outdoor scenes set in the former Soviet Union were shot in Paldiski
, Estonia
, a former nuclear submarine
training centre for the Soviet Navy
. Swedish exteriors were filmed in Malmö and studio scenes in Trollhättan
. Interpreters had to be present for the Russian actors to be able to understand Moodysson, who in turn had to direct based on emotional impression from the actors' intonation rather than the words. When the lines didn't sound well he would ask the actors to drop the script and improvise. One of the interpreters was Alexandra Dahlström
, the star from Moodysson's debut feature Show Me Love. Dahlström, whose mother is Russian, also served as assistant director, which the producers held as an advantage since she was the same age as the title character.
Director of photography was Ulf Brantås, who started his career as a cinematographer for Roy Andersson
and had filmed both of Moodysson's previous feature films. Lilya 4-ever was shot with an Aaton
XTR Prod on 16 mm film which was later transferred to 35 mm. Minimum lighting was used, mainly from practicals, and whenever possible only sunlight. Locations were only sparsely rigged by the crew. A custom built rickshaw
, made from the wheels of a mountain bike, was used for the long rearward-facing tracking shots. No correction filters were used though the stock was eventually graded in post-production in order to appear slightly warmer.
released Lilja 4-ever in Swedish cinemas. Several festival appearances followed including Venice
, Toronto
and London Film Festival
. A limited release in the United States begun on 18 April 2003 through Newmarket Films
. Metrodome released it on 25 April 2003 in the United Kingdom, where it opened in 13 theatres. The Australian premiere followed on 7 August the same year, distributed by Potential Films.
The film has also been utilised by humanitarian organisations, in information campaigns against human trafficking
in various Eastern European countries. In Moldova
, the International Organization for Migration
received the distribution rights and organised screenings attended by 60,000 people, mostly young females but also members of the government.
by hailing Moodysson's ability to address different themes and emotional spectra, and thereby escape comparison between his pictures. Janson went on to compare the directing to Lars von Trier
's Breaking the Waves
and Dancer in the Dark
, and found Lilja 4-ever to be superior: "What particularly distinguishes Moodysson's from von Trier's destruction tales, and makes it so much more gruesome, are the ties to reality. While we're sitting in the movie theatre and delight and torment ourselves through this masterpiece, happens outside exactly what Lilja encounters perhaps only a few kilometres or miles away from us." The film was fairly successful at the Swedish box office, although significantly less so than Moodysson's previous films. Lilya 4-ever sold 270,000 tickets during the theatrical run, compared to 867,584 and 882,000 respectively for Show Me Love and Together
.
The film was embraced by most English-language critics as well. As of November 2009 it had an 86% approval from 65 reviews listed at Rotten Tomatoes
, with an average rating of 7.5/10. It was rated with four stars out of five possible in the British film magazine Empire
, where reviewer Michael Hayden praised the performance by Oksana Akinshina while comparing the film to both the social realism
of Ken Loach
, and "the darkest of fairy tales, complete with wicked aunts and guardian angels." Manohla Dargis
of the Los Angeles Times
noted that the image of the girl lured into prostitution might be a cliché, but held the director's honest intention as an acceptable excuse: "Moodysson wants us to see that there's a real person under the platitudes". She also noted that while the story might be unpleasant to take part of, the discomfort is surpassed by the sheer quality of the film: "This isn't an easy film -- only a memorable one." A negative review came from Sight & Sound
s Tony Rayns
. Rayns dismissed the film as melodramatic and lacking in substance, while also criticizing the stylistic choice of the dream sequences, as well as the soundtrack's composition: "The most extreme case is [the] use of Rammstein's 'Mein Herz brennt', played at woofer-challenging volume over the opening and closing scenes. ... Even if we take the volume as a metaphor for the girl's wish to block out the world, it's absurd to imagine that Lilja would ever relate to or even listen to a Rammstein track in German. So the wall of sound comes from some 'higher' version of MTV, not from the character or story."
. Akinshina won the awards for Best Actress both in Gijón and at Rouen Nordic Film Festival
. Ulf Brantås was prized for Best Cinematography at Zimbabwe International Film Festival
and Moodysson won the award for Best Director at Brasilia International Film Festival.
The film was the big winner at the 2003 Guldbagge Award
s where it received prizes for Best Film, Best Direction, Best Screenplay, Akinshina as Best Actress and Best Cinematography. Bogucharsky was also nominated for Best Actor. It was nominated for Best Film and Best Actress
at the European Film Awards. At the Chlotrudis Awards 2004
, an annual event held in Massachusetts
with the aim to "honor and support independent and foreign films", it was nominated for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Actor, but failed to win in any category. It was Sweden's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
at the 75th Academy Awards
, which sparked some controversy when the Academy considered to deem it ineligible since the primary language is not Swedish. Eventually it was accepted, but failed to be nominated. In November 2009 the film magazine FLM published a list of the 10 best Swedish films of the decade as voted by 26 of the country's leading critics. Lilya 4-ever appeared as number three on the list, surpassed only by Involuntary
and Songs from the Second Floor
.
2002 in film
The year 2002 in film involved some significant events. The first significant releases of sequels took place between The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones, Men in Black II, Analyze That, Spy Kids 2: The Island of...
Swedish
Cinema of Sweden
Swedish cinema is known as producing many critically acclaimed movies, and during the 20th century was the most prominent of Scandinavia. This is largely due to the popularity and prominence of the directors Ingmar Bergman, Victor Sjöström, and more recently Lasse Hallström and Lukas...
drama film. It is director Lukas Moodysson
Lukas Moodysson
- External links :*...
's third feature film which marks a sharp change of mood from his previous two films, the uplifting love story Show Me Love and Together
Together (2000 film)
Together is a 2000 comedy/drama film. It is Swedish director Lukas Moodysson's second full length film. Set in a Stockholm commune called "Tillsammans" in 1975, it is a satirical view at socialist values and a bittersweet comedy....
, set in the 1970s. Lilja 4-ever is an unremittingly brutal and realistic story of the downward spiral of Lilja, played by Oksana Akinshina
Oksana Akinshina
Oksana Aleksandrovna Akinshina , also known as Oksana Akinsjina, is a Russian actress. She is probably the best known for her roles in films Sisters, Lilya 4-ever, The Bourne Supremacy and Hipsters.- Early and personal life :...
, a girl in the former Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
whose mother abandons her to move to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The story is loosely based on a true case and examines the issue of human trafficking
Human trafficking
Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...
and sexual slavery
Sexual slavery
Sexual slavery is when unwilling people are coerced into slavery for sexual exploitation. The incidence of sexual slavery by country has been studied and tabulated by UNESCO, with the cooperation of various international agencies...
.
The film received positive reviews both in Sweden and abroad. It won five Guldbagge Award
Guldbagge Award
The Guldbagge Award is an official Swedish film award awarded annually since 1964 by the Swedish Film Institute.-Etymology:Guldbagge is the Swedish name for Cetonia aurata, a beetle also known as rose chafer. The name of the award could also be interpreted as a play on the Swedish word skalbagge,...
s including Best Film, and was nominated for Best Film and Best Actress
European Film Award for Best Actress
-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:-External links:*...
at the European Film Awards.
Plot
The film starts with a figure running desperately towards a motorway bridge, with a factory belching smoke in the background, to a soundtrack of Mein Herz brennt by RammsteinRammstein
Rammstein is a German Neue Deutsche Härte band from Berlin, formed in 1994. The band consists of members Till Lindemann , Richard Z. Kruspe , Paul H. Landers , Oliver "Ollie" Riedel , Christoph "Doom" Schneider and Christian "Flake" Lorenz...
. When the figure turns around the film introduces the audience to Lilja, who has recently been brutally beaten. The film reveals her past.
Lilja lives a fairly bleak life with her mother in a run down apartment block in a squalid, poor town in an unnamed former republic of the Soviet Union (principal filming took place in Paldiski
Paldiski
Paldiski is a town and Baltic Sea port situated on the Pakri peninsula of north-western Estonia. Originally a Swedish settlement known as Rågervik, it became a Russian naval base in the 18th century. The Russians renamed it Балтийский Порт Paldiski is a town and Baltic Sea port situated on the...
, Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
). For all intents and purposes she is a normal teenage girl (albeit an impoverished one). Lilja's mother tells her they are emigrating to the United States with her new boyfriend, but at the last minute Lilja is left behind, in the care of her aunt. A forced move into a squalid flat (while the Aunt moves herself into the larger, nicer flat that Lilja and her mother had lived in) is only the beginning, and a succession of miseries are heaped upon Lilja. Lilja's best friend encourages her to join her in prostituting herself for extra cash, though Lilja decides not to follow through. However, when the friend's father finds the money the friend claims that she was the one who sat at the bar while Lilja prostituted herself. Not content with ruining Lilja's reputation at home, the story soon goes round school. As Lilja has been abandoned, she now really does have to prostitute herself for money to live. One glimmer of hope is her friend Volodya (Artyom Bogucharsky), abused and rejected by his alcoholic father, with whom she forms a tender protective relationship. She buys Volodya a basketball with money she has earned as a prostitute, but Volodya's father punctures it with a pair of scissors. Another glimmer of hope is Andrei (Pavel Ponomaryov
Pavel Ponomaryov
Pavel Ponomaryov , actor in the Swedish film Lilya 4-ever by Lukas Moodysson.-External links:...
), who becomes her boyfriend and offers her a job in Sweden
Sweden
Sweden , officially the Kingdom of Sweden , is a Nordic country on the Scandinavian Peninsula in Northern Europe. Sweden borders with Norway and Finland and is connected to Denmark by a bridge-tunnel across the Öresund....
. But all is not what it seems, and only bad things await Lilja when she arrives there.
After arriving in Sweden, she is greeted by her future "employer" (in reality, a pimp) and taken to a nearly empty apartment where he imprisons her. Lilja is raped by the pimp and she is then forced to perform sexual acts for her pimp's clients; all the abuse is seen from Lilja's point of view.
Meanwhile in the former Soviet Union, Volodya commits suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
, devastated that Lilja had abandoned him to his fate. In the form of an angel, Volodya comes to Lilja to watch over her. On Christmas Day, he transports Lilja to the roof of the apartment, and gives Lilja the world as a present, but she simply finds it cold and unwelcoming. After one escape attempt Lilja is brutally beaten by her pimp, but she then escapes again. Finally, and much to the distress of Volodya (who regrets having killed himself) she commits suicide herself in the continuation of the scene from the beginning of the film by jumping from the bridge.
The film's conclusion shows two alternate versions of events: a. Lilja and Volodya, now both dead, angelic and happily playing basketball on the roof of some tenement building, safe from all harm the world can do to them. b. It is also shown that somehow Lilja was sent back in time to when she made the decision to go to Sweden "with Andrei" (possibly as a result of the deceased Volodya's intervention). In essence she finds herself exactly at the moment she first made the decision, however this time she rejects "Andrei"'s offer to go to Sweden and she and Volodya are shown to presumably live happier lives.
Cast
- Oksana AkinshinaOksana AkinshinaOksana Aleksandrovna Akinshina , also known as Oksana Akinsjina, is a Russian actress. She is probably the best known for her roles in films Sisters, Lilya 4-ever, The Bourne Supremacy and Hipsters.- Early and personal life :...
as Lilja - Artyom Bogucharsky as Volodya
- Lyubov Agapova as Lilja's mother
- Liliya Shinkaryova as aunt Anna
- Elina Benenson as Natasha
- Pavel PonomaryovPavel PonomaryovPavel Ponomaryov , actor in the Swedish film Lilya 4-ever by Lukas Moodysson.-External links:...
as Andrei - Tomasz Neuman as Witek
- Anastasiya Bedredinova as neighbour
- Tõnu Kark as Sergei
- Nikolai Bentsler as Natasha's boyfriend
Writing and pre-production
The script was loosely based on the life of Danguole Rasalaite, a 16-year-old girl from LithuaniaLithuania
Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...
whose case had made headlines in Sweden in 2000. A male acquaintance helped Rasalaite travel to Sweden with the promise of a job in Malmö
Malmö
Malmö , in the southernmost province of Scania, is the third most populous city in Sweden, after Stockholm and Gothenburg.Malmö is the seat of Malmö Municipality and the capital of Skåne County...
. When she arrived, a man referred to as "the Russian," who would become her pimp, took her passport and told her she would have to repay him 20,000 SEK
Swedish krona
The krona has been the currency of Sweden since 1873. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use; the former precedes or follows the value, the latter usually follows it, but especially in the past, it sometimes preceded the value...
(US$2410 in 1999; $ today) for travel expenses, and she was forced to prostitute herself for the next month. She escaped from the apartment where she was being held in the rough suburb of Arlöv
Arlöv
Arlöv is the seat of Burlöv Municipality, Skåne County, Sweden. It is statistically not defined as a locality of its own, but forms part of the contiguous Malmö urban area, 5 km northeast of downtown Malmö. Out of Malmö's 280,000 inhbitants, 11000 live in Arlöv...
, moved to Malmö, and after three months, day after she had been raped by her boyfrend and two other men, on 7 January 2000 jumped from a bridge and died three days later in the hospital. Three letters she was carrying with her unravelled the story. The screenplay was originally supposed to be deeply religious, with Jesus
Jesus
Jesus of Nazareth , commonly referred to as Jesus Christ or simply as Jesus or Christ, is the central figure of Christianity...
being a prominent character, walking next to Lilja throughout the story. Moodysson wrote the script in Swedish and then had it translated into Russian.
Production was led by Moodysson's usual studio Memfis Film. Co-producers were Film i Väst
Film i Väst
Film i Väst is a film company located in Trollhättan, Sweden, founded in 1992. Lars von Trier used its facilities in his movies, such as Dogville and Manderlay.-Walk of Fame:...
, Sveriges Television
Sveriges Television
Sveriges Television AB , Sweden's Television, is a national television broadcaster based in Sweden, funded by a compulsory fee to be paid by all television owners...
and Zentropa
Zentropa
Europa is a film directed by Lars von Trier. Released in 1991, it is von Trier's third theatrical feature film and is the final film in the Europa trilogy....
. Financial support was provided by the Swedish
Swedish Film Institute
The Swedish Film Institute was founded in 1963 to support and develop the Swedish film industry. The institute is housed in the Filmhuset building located in Gärdet, Östermalm in Stockholm...
and Danish Film Institute
Danish Film Institute
The Danish Film Institute is the national Danish agency responsible for supporting and encouraging film and cinema culture, and for conserving these in the national interest....
s as well as Nordisk Film- & TV-Fond. The budget was 30 million SEK.
During the casting period, Moodysson and the crew interviewed "something like 1000" young applicants for the leading roles. The actors had to improvise on a scenario where they had been grounded and were trying to convince their mother to let them go out. While Artyom Bogucharsky had no previous acting experience, Oksana Akinshina
Oksana Akinshina
Oksana Aleksandrovna Akinshina , also known as Oksana Akinsjina, is a Russian actress. She is probably the best known for her roles in films Sisters, Lilya 4-ever, The Bourne Supremacy and Hipsters.- Early and personal life :...
had already starred in Sergei Bodrov, Jr.
Sergei Bodrov, Jr.
Sergei Bodrov Jr. was a Russian actor who had lead roles in the movies Brother, Prisoner of the Mountains, The Stringer and Brother 2. He was the son of the Russian playwright, actor, director and producer Sergei Bodrov...
's 2001 crime film Sisters. Moodysson has commented Akinshina as "[not] exactly what I had imagined. She is better than I imagined but different, somehow."
Filming and post-production
Paldiski
Paldiski is a town and Baltic Sea port situated on the Pakri peninsula of north-western Estonia. Originally a Swedish settlement known as Rågervik, it became a Russian naval base in the 18th century. The Russians renamed it Балтийский Порт Paldiski is a town and Baltic Sea port situated on the...
, Estonia
Estonia
Estonia , officially the Republic of Estonia , is a state in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia , and to the east by Lake Peipsi and the Russian Federation . Across the Baltic Sea lies...
, a former nuclear submarine
Nuclear submarine
A nuclear submarine is a submarine powered by a nuclear reactor . The performance advantages of nuclear submarines over "conventional" submarines are considerable: nuclear propulsion, being completely independent of air, frees the submarine from the need to surface frequently, as is necessary for...
training centre for the Soviet Navy
Soviet Navy
The Soviet Navy was the naval arm of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy would have played an instrumental role in a Warsaw Pact war with NATO, where it would have attempted to prevent naval convoys from bringing reinforcements across the Atlantic Ocean...
. Swedish exteriors were filmed in Malmö and studio scenes in Trollhättan
Trollhättan
Trollhättan is a city and the seat of Trollhättan Municipality, Västra Götaland County, Sweden with 44,498 inhabitants in 2005. It is located 75 km north of Sweden's second-largest city, Gothenburg....
. Interpreters had to be present for the Russian actors to be able to understand Moodysson, who in turn had to direct based on emotional impression from the actors' intonation rather than the words. When the lines didn't sound well he would ask the actors to drop the script and improvise. One of the interpreters was Alexandra Dahlström
Alexandra Dahlström
Lena Marina Alexandra Dahlström is a Swedish actress.-Career:Dahlström gained international attention in 1998, after starring as "Elin" in the film Show Me Love. For this, she won the Guldbagge Award for Best Actress, together with Rebecka Liljeberg...
, the star from Moodysson's debut feature Show Me Love. Dahlström, whose mother is Russian, also served as assistant director, which the producers held as an advantage since she was the same age as the title character.
Director of photography was Ulf Brantås, who started his career as a cinematographer for Roy Andersson
Roy Andersson
Roy Andersson is a Swedish film director, best known for his films A Swedish Love Story and Songs from the Second Floor. More than any other, Songs from the Second Floor succeeded in cementing his personal style — a style characterized by long takes, absurdist comedy, stiff caricaturing of...
and had filmed both of Moodysson's previous feature films. Lilya 4-ever was shot with an Aaton
Aaton
Aaton is a motion picture equipment manufacturer, based in Grenoble, France. Aaton was founded by Eclair engineer Jean-Pierre Beauviala, whose efforts have been primarily focused on making quiet, portable motion picture hardware suitable for impromptu field use, as for documentaries...
XTR Prod on 16 mm film which was later transferred to 35 mm. Minimum lighting was used, mainly from practicals, and whenever possible only sunlight. Locations were only sparsely rigged by the crew. A custom built rickshaw
Cycle rickshaw
The cycle rickshaw is a small-scale local means of transport; it is also known by a variety of other names such as velotaxi, pedicab, bikecab, cyclo, becak, trisikad, or trishaw or, simply, rickshaw which also refers to auto rickshaws, and the, now uncommon, rickshaws pulled by a person on foot...
, made from the wheels of a mountain bike, was used for the long rearward-facing tracking shots. No correction filters were used though the stock was eventually graded in post-production in order to appear slightly warmer.
Release
On 23 August 2002, Sonet FilmSonet Film
Sonet Film is a Swedish film production company.Established in 1984, Sonet Film is one of Scandinavia's leading film companies and distributors of cinema. Since 1997 it is owned by the Sweden-based media company Bonnier....
released Lilja 4-ever in Swedish cinemas. Several festival appearances followed including Venice
59th Venice International Film Festival
The 59th Venice International Film Festival was held on 27 August - 6 September, 2002.-Jury:* Li Gong * Jacques Audiard * Yevgeni Yevtushenko * Ulrich Felsberg * László Kovács...
, Toronto
2002 Toronto International Film Festival
The 2002 Toronto International Film Festival ran from September 5 to September 17 and screened 343 films from 50 countries. Of these 263 were feature films, of which 141 were in a language other than English...
and London Film Festival
London Film Festival
The BFI London Film Festival is the UK's largest public film event, screening more than 300 features, documentaries and shorts from almost 50 countries. The festival, , currently in its 54th year, is run every year in the second half of October under the umbrella of the British Film Institute...
. A limited release in the United States begun on 18 April 2003 through Newmarket Films
Newmarket Films
Newmarket Films is an American film production and distribution company which is a subsidiary of Newmarket Capital Group. It was founded in 1994.-Brief summary:...
. Metrodome released it on 25 April 2003 in the United Kingdom, where it opened in 13 theatres. The Australian premiere followed on 7 August the same year, distributed by Potential Films.
The film has also been utilised by humanitarian organisations, in information campaigns against human trafficking
Human trafficking
Human trafficking is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, forced labor, or a modern-day form of slavery...
in various Eastern European countries. In Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
, the International Organization for Migration
International Organization for Migration
The International Organization for Migration is an intergovernmental organization. It was initially established in 1951 as the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration to help resettle people displaced by World War II....
received the distribution rights and organised screenings attended by 60,000 people, mostly young females but also members of the government.
Reception
Swedish critics were very positive to Lilja 4-ever upon its release. Malena Janson started her review in Svenska DagbladetSvenska Dagbladet
Svenska Dagbladet is a daily newspaper in Sweden. The first issue appeared on 18 December 1884. Svenska Dagbladet is published in Stockholm and provides coverage of national and international news as well as local coverage of the Greater Stockholm region...
by hailing Moodysson's ability to address different themes and emotional spectra, and thereby escape comparison between his pictures. Janson went on to compare the directing to Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier
Lars von Trier is a Danish film director and screenwriter. He is closely associated with the Dogme 95 collective, although his own films have taken a variety of different approaches, and have frequently received strongly divided critical opinion....
's Breaking the Waves
Breaking the Waves
Breaking the Waves is a 1996 film directed by Lars von Trier and starring Emily Watson. Set in the Scottish Highlands in the early 1970s, it tells the story of an unusual young woman, Bess McNeill, and of the love she has for Jan, her husband. The film is an international co-production led by Lars...
and Dancer in the Dark
Dancer in the Dark
Dancer in the Dark is a 2000 Danish musical drama film directed by Lars von Trier and starring Icelandic singer Björk, Catherine Deneuve, David Morse, Cara Seymour, Peter Stormare, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, and Joel Grey...
, and found Lilja 4-ever to be superior: "What particularly distinguishes Moodysson's from von Trier's destruction tales, and makes it so much more gruesome, are the ties to reality. While we're sitting in the movie theatre and delight and torment ourselves through this masterpiece, happens outside exactly what Lilja encounters perhaps only a few kilometres or miles away from us." The film was fairly successful at the Swedish box office, although significantly less so than Moodysson's previous films. Lilya 4-ever sold 270,000 tickets during the theatrical run, compared to 867,584 and 882,000 respectively for Show Me Love and Together
Together (2000 film)
Together is a 2000 comedy/drama film. It is Swedish director Lukas Moodysson's second full length film. Set in a Stockholm commune called "Tillsammans" in 1975, it is a satirical view at socialist values and a bittersweet comedy....
.
The film was embraced by most English-language critics as well. As of November 2009 it had an 86% approval from 65 reviews listed at Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, with an average rating of 7.5/10. It was rated with four stars out of five possible in the British film magazine Empire
Empire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
, where reviewer Michael Hayden praised the performance by Oksana Akinshina while comparing the film to both the social realism
Social realism
Social Realism, also known as Socio-Realism, is an artistic movement, expressed in the visual and other realist arts, which depicts social and racial injustice, economic hardship, through unvarnished pictures of life's struggles; often depicting working class activities as heroic...
of Ken Loach
Ken Loach
Kenneth "Ken" Loach is a Palme D'Or winning English film and television director.He is known for his naturalistic, social realist directing style and for his socialist beliefs, which are evident in his film treatment of social issues such as homelessness , labour rights and child abuse at the...
, and "the darkest of fairy tales, complete with wicked aunts and guardian angels." Manohla Dargis
Manohla Dargis
Manohla Dargis is a chief film critic for The New York Times, along with A.O. Scott. She was formerly a chief film critic for the Los Angeles Times, the film editor at the LA Weekly, and a film critic at The Village Voice. She has written for a variety of publications, including Film Comment and...
of the Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
noted that the image of the girl lured into prostitution might be a cliché, but held the director's honest intention as an acceptable excuse: "Moodysson wants us to see that there's a real person under the platitudes". She also noted that while the story might be unpleasant to take part of, the discomfort is surpassed by the sheer quality of the film: "This isn't an easy film -- only a memorable one." A negative review came from Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound
Sight & Sound is a British monthly film magazine published by the British Film Institute .Sight & Sound was first published in 1932 and in 1934 management of the magazine was handed to the nascent BFI, which still publishes the magazine today...
s Tony Rayns
Tony Rayns
Antony Rayns is a British writer, commentator, film festival programmer and screenwriter. Much inspired in his youth by the films of Kenneth Anger, he wrote for the underground publication Cinema Rising before contributing to the Monthly Film Bulletin from the December 1970 issue until its demise...
. Rayns dismissed the film as melodramatic and lacking in substance, while also criticizing the stylistic choice of the dream sequences, as well as the soundtrack's composition: "The most extreme case is [the] use of Rammstein's 'Mein Herz brennt', played at woofer-challenging volume over the opening and closing scenes. ... Even if we take the volume as a metaphor for the girl's wish to block out the world, it's absurd to imagine that Lilja would ever relate to or even listen to a Rammstein track in German. So the wall of sound comes from some 'higher' version of MTV, not from the character or story."
Awards and honours
Lilya 4-ever won several awards from film festivals around the world including Best Film at Gijón International Film FestivalGijón International Film Festival
Gijón International Film Festival was created in 1963. It was born as an initiative of the local authority and it was sponsored mainly by Gijón City Council and the then Caja de Ahorros de Asturias ; both institutions are still the main organisers of the festival, along with funding from the...
. Akinshina won the awards for Best Actress both in Gijón and at Rouen Nordic Film Festival
Rouen Nordic Film Festival
The Rouen Nordic Film Festival was a film festival hold in Rouen, France for screening and competition films made in Nordic and Baltic countries, Holland and Belgium...
. Ulf Brantås was prized for Best Cinematography at Zimbabwe International Film Festival
Zimbabwe International Film Festival
The Zimbabwe International Film Festival is an annual ten day film festival held in Zimbabwe in August or September. It is a non-profit organisation. The festival is a non-political competitive platform that provides a showcase of feature films, documentary films and short films, as well as...
and Moodysson won the award for Best Director at Brasilia International Film Festival.
The film was the big winner at the 2003 Guldbagge Award
Guldbagge Award
The Guldbagge Award is an official Swedish film award awarded annually since 1964 by the Swedish Film Institute.-Etymology:Guldbagge is the Swedish name for Cetonia aurata, a beetle also known as rose chafer. The name of the award could also be interpreted as a play on the Swedish word skalbagge,...
s where it received prizes for Best Film, Best Direction, Best Screenplay, Akinshina as Best Actress and Best Cinematography. Bogucharsky was also nominated for Best Actor. It was nominated for Best Film and Best Actress
European Film Award for Best Actress
-1980s:-1990s:-2000s:-2010s:-External links:*...
at the European Film Awards. At the Chlotrudis Awards 2004
Chlotrudis Awards 2004
The 10th Annual Chlotrudis Awards were presented March 28, 2004, by the Chlotrudis Society for Independent Film. Honoring the best of the past year's independent, documentary and international film, the awards ceremony took place at the venerable Brattle Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts...
, an annual event held in Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
with the aim to "honor and support independent and foreign films", it was nominated for Best Film, Best Director, Best Actress and Best Actor, but failed to win in any category. It was Sweden's submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film
The Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film is one of the Academy Awards of Merit, popularly known as the Oscars, handed out annually by the U.S.-based Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences...
at the 75th Academy Awards
75th Academy Awards
The 75th Academy Awards honored the best films of 2002, were held on March 23, 2003, at the Kodak Theatre in Hollywood, California. It was produced by Gil Cates and hosted for the second time by Steve Martin....
, which sparked some controversy when the Academy considered to deem it ineligible since the primary language is not Swedish. Eventually it was accepted, but failed to be nominated. In November 2009 the film magazine FLM published a list of the 10 best Swedish films of the decade as voted by 26 of the country's leading critics. Lilya 4-ever appeared as number three on the list, surpassed only by Involuntary
Involuntary (film)
Involuntary is a 2008 Swedish film directed by Ruben Östlund described as "a tragic comedy or comic tragedy." It features five parallel stories with human group behaviour as the common theme. The film is notable for its long takes with no cuts within the scenes. This is related to Östlund's...
and Songs from the Second Floor
Songs from the Second Floor
Songs from the Second Floor is a 2000 Swedish film written and directed by Roy Andersson. It presents a series of disconnected vignettes that together interrogate aspects of modern life. The film uses many quotations from the work of the Peruvian poet César Vallejo as a recurring motif...
.