Product Details

• Actors: Oksana Akinshina, Artyom Bogucharsky, Pavel Ponomaryov, Lyubov Agapova, Liliya Shinkaryova
• Directors: Lukas Moodysson
• Writers: Lukas Moodysson
• Producers: Gunnar Carlsson, Lars Jönsson, Malte Forsell, Peeter Urbla, Peter Aalbćk Jensen
• Format: NTSC
• Language: English, Russian, Swedish
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Run Time: 109 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005JM7G
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #70,793 in Movies & TV (See Bestsellers in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars It might just change your life, June 11, 2004

By	adriana "alisa" (Los Angeles,CA,USA) - See all my reviews

The first time I saw this movie, I think I cried about it for days.And everyone I showed it to walked around like total zombies after having seen it. Because it is so real, and raw, and unflinchingly honest in showing the lives of such miserable, misfortunate people.And most of these people are no older than sixteen.And while this may come as no surprise to you that there are people like this living in the world(I thought so myself), actually seeing it has the capacity to change your whole life.When a film can do that,you know its got to be pretty damn powerful.

Lilja(Oksana Akinshina) is a sixteen year old girl who lives with her mom in a desolate little town somewhere in Russia.When Lilja's mom tells her that her new boyfriend is taking them both to live in America, Lilja is absolutely electrified with hope and joy at something better. But things don't go exactly as planned and what follows is a wrenching,impossibly bleak, and absolutely devastating film which is simply impossible to look away from.Along the way, Lilja meets an eleven year old boy(the absolutely, wrenchingly irresistible Artyom Bugacharski).This boy has a destiny just as bad as Lilja's, if not even worse.He sells glue on the streets, and sleeps in the winter cold outside because his own father beats him out of the house.

When I say this film is bleak, I mean just that-there is not one bright spot, not one shred of hope expressed throughout.And still, even though you know that everything will just break in the end, you know that there is no future for these kids, you cannot help but sit on the edge of your seat and grip your sweaty palms together in hope that things will work out.By the time the film ended I was too busy spinnning in an apocalyptic whirlwind of hope and anticipation to even feel anything. But once those credits began to roll, boy, did I cry. I didn't just shed a tear or two, I absolutely wept and wept and wept.

I wept because this film is so bleak and hopeless and real-and you realize when seeing this, and I mean truly realize, not read it in the paper realize how many kids there are with fates like this and even worse. I swear that YOU will feel ashamed for every day you ever complained about the trials in your life. This is the type of movie that should be required viewing in schools-there are so many kids that just need to be woken up from their perfect slumber to see what deep misery lies in this world.

And the greatest thing about this movie is that it doesn't ever try to shock.It doesn't move you through grotesque images and gruesome,graphic sights. And you have to give many props to director Lukas Moodysson for being able to create such a real film without resorting to shock value. I'm not saying that there aren't many difficult scenes, but he never resorts to shock over story, and that really does raise this film up to another level.And, being shot in handheld camera(I;m not a film pro, but I'm guessing) really does give the film a grainy, unpolished sort of quality so that its almost documentary line.

All the kids in this film were amazing-their acting was so good, that the characters on screen were frighteningly real human beings-not only victims.

This is an absolute emotional wipe out of a film.And not because it is sentimental or because it has the greatest dialogue in the world. Because it is so stunningly real-and sometimes reality can be the hardest thing to stomach.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Painfully real, July 12, 2003

By	Crayolaman (Detroit, USA) - See all my reviews

An absolutely brilliant movie!
It starts out sort of Run Lola Run-y, only not so sweet.
The soundtrack pounds relentlessly courtesy of Rammstein.
Set in the former Soviet Union (Estonia), the young heroin Lilya (Wonderfully played by Akinshina) takes us through a morbid, but very lifelike tale of abandonment, prostitution, abuse, betrayal, and suicide.
Although the film is very sad, Lilya and Volodya remain loveble characters. A frightening eye-opener to life of some less fortunate people everywhere in the world

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Small Masterpiece, May 24, 2003

By	Vita Lusty (Venice, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The film follows a 16 year-old girl who is left to fend for herself in the Russian Federation and in poverty.

What keeps her story from flat heartbreak or painful downward spiral is her strength.

Never before has a film been able to capture prostitution without being erotic. This does.

It will change your life.