What Great Movies Have You Seen Lately?

[JPZenger]

I just saw a very moving film entitled "Lilya 4-Ever." It is available from Netflix.com. It is a very sad movie about a 16 year old girl named Lilya in Russia. Her mother abandons her, her aunt cheats her, and all the men she comes across abuse her. Her only friend is a 12 year old boy who is thrown out of his house by an insane father. The first part of the movie takes take in a dreary city of apartment blocks and vacant lots. Then, just when it seems that Lilya's life is about to turn around, it gets much worse. Don't expect a happy ending.

Here is an excerpt from Roger Ebert's review:

"The mother is heartless, but then this is a society crushed by poverty and despair. There must be better neighborhoods somewhere, but we do not see them and Lilya does not find them. Within a day of her mother's departure, she is ordered by an embittered aunt to clear out of her mother's apartment and move into the squalor of a tenement room.

Lilya's descent into prostitution does not surprise us. There is no money for food, no one cares for her, she is pretty, she is desperate, and when she finds her first client in a disco, the movie focuses closely on her blank, indifferent face, turned away from the panting man above her. Later there is a montage of clients, seen from her point of view (although she is not seen), and it says all that can be said about her disgust with them.

The money at least allows her to buy junk food and cigarettes, and give a basketball to Volodya, whose father is enraged by the gift. Then friendship seems to come in the form of a young man who offers her a ride home, takes her on a date, and says he works in Sweden and can get her a job there. We see through him, and even Volodya does, but she is blinded by the prospect he describes: "You'll make more money there in a week than a doctor here makes in a month." Perhaps, but not for herself.

The movie ... 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. The movie should inspire outrage, but I read of thousands of women from Eastern Europe who are lured into virtual slavery."

[taterguy]

1. Junebug n/t