Lilya 4-Ever

With his most dramatic and dark film so far, Moodysson establishes his status as the most important director in Sweden. Lilya 4 Ever was largely shot in Russia, where Moodysson directed the actors, among them the young Russian female lead Oksana Akinshina (well known from Sisters, by Sergei Bodrov Jr. who died tragically last year), with the aid of an interpreter. In the opening scenes, we see Lilya considering jumping from a bridge somewhere in Sweden to the sound of Rammstein’s ‘Mein Herz brennt’. She comes from a disconsolate district in the former Soviet Union. There she dreamt of an exciting future in America, that would start as soon as her mother – who has emigrated with her new lover – would send for her to come too. Her mother however left Lilya in the lurch and her only friend is the neighbour Volodya, a boy with whom she sniffs glue and creates a fantasy world. When she receives an offer from the much older Andrei, who she is in love with, to start a new life in Sweden, she accepts eagerly. However things are not much better in Sweden. Moodysson likes to see the world through the eyes of kids. In Lilya 4-Ever, the perspective of the naïve Lilya provides a heart-rending film about a cruel world where paid sex, lover boys and cold neon light defeat the fairytale world and innocence.