Lilja 4-ever - depressive, moralistic, dispensable?

[kant1781]

What's wrong with an endless cry of desperation if the world is desperate?

Lukas Moodysson is just a very sensitive and honest observer of our world. He sees beauty, love and courage in it, and so he depicts beauty, love and courage (as in FA). He sees ugliness, cruelty, and desperation in it, so he depicts ugliness, cruelty, and desperation (as in Lilja).

But it seems that some only want to hear the first kind of message, not the second. Their repeated complaint against the second kind of message is, "This film does not tell me anything new." I cannot get rid of the feeling that the only motivation behind this is that they do not want to be bothered, just entertained.

Or why did nobody ever complain: "Fucking Amal didn't tell me anything new!" ??
(Because, actually, it didn't. And it doesn't matter a damn.)

[bruno]

Problem is not what film is "positive" or "negative". Or what film tells you something new (but yet, L4E does not, and, individual true story aside, is confused IMHO at the very problem it tries to tackle, see my post 7538 above).
Problem is, in my very personal opinion I think a film should tell a story***. While I don't deny some artsy moments are present in L4E, my (very personal) opinion is that FÅ does tell a story where L4E does not.

And I have nothing against being bothered. But to bother me a film needs to tell me a real story. If it just shows like a priest' preach the sad demise of this girl being crushed and crushed again and humiliated and then forced to suicide, I just say that I know this s--t does exist and I can see almost openly it in the streets.

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*** Ok I think in fact this is the largely shared opinion, but it could be impossible to demonstrate it, against the subjective right to think a film should do different things: so I don't even try. I'm not for useless and endless debate or flames.

[kant1781]

No harsh feelings, bruno! I didn't mean it personally and I didn't want to offend you. Sorry if I did!

I respect your personal view, I just honestly don't understand it. I don't understand what it means to say that a film should tell a "real story" but that Lilja 4ever doesn't - while at the same time saying that the things shown in the film exist on your very street. So then, I'd say, it's a real story, and it's even a realistic story, sadly. And even if you knew that sort of thing existed before, well, I don't get this point either, because (to repeat myself), I (for one) knew that there were teenage first loves between girls in boring small towns before I saw FA, and it never crossed my mind to complain about this film that it didn't tell me anything I did not already know.

[bruno]

Well, a story is something where a character can make decisions and choices, and he/she is influenced by the result of these actions.
L4E gives me a feeling of predictable, obvious things that will happen to the girl (she is helpless, can't defend herself: she can't understand she's going to be betrayed, and even if she could understand that, her destiny is probably signed anyway), all described in a linear, moralistic, patronizing way.
But I see I'm more or less repeating here things Kolya said a couple of years ago, so the better way is agree to disagree, and no harsh feelings.

[12raHraH]

Impressive film by Lukas. You just have to dig deep in this one.

[bruno]

Rumanian girl, 21 years old, is menaced and coerced to become a prostitute. The pimps (rumanians, too) filmed the "rite of passage" for fun.
She was the lucky one, maybe. She worked with the police to get these guys chased by the justice near Rome, and she was free. One of them is in jail (caught by rumanian police while trying to return to his country) but she faces a possible revenge against herself or her child...

http://tinyurl.com/c8ckd3

I don't want to reopen a debate here: I'm posting this just to show how L4E is little more than everyday's news. IMO, of course.

[mpox]

I don't want to reopen a debate here: I'm posting this just to show how L4E is little more than everyday's news. IMO, of course.

Nobody was debating this actually happening, Moodysson was apparently inspired by a girl in Lilya's situation throwing herself off an overpass, it was that you thought that because it was "everyday news" it wasn't worth making a movie about it.

[bruno]

L4E falls short because is just a documentary full of moralistic lessons, plus some artsy scenes. It doesnt have the depth of a film. I read somewhere it was shown as a cautionary tale in the schools of some eastern countries: probably L4E is good for just this purpose.

[kant1781]

Please... not again! It's all been said, it's here to read for everyone and it doesn't get clearer by being repeated. So unless there's a new idea by anyone... otherwise, I swear, I will feel called upon to defend it once more with the ever same argument, and that gets tiresome too.

Lilya has been turned into a theater play, btw, in Germany (just like FA before, in many cities) and is currently showing in Berlin's Maxim Gorki Theater. For those who read German, take a look:
http://www.gorki.de/?page=spielplan&subpage=monatsplan&eventId=4315994

[bruno]

Please... not again!

Ok, ok

I agree to a cease fire...

[fish]

Sort of on topic..... a bit.

Address by Her Majesty Queen Silvia of Sweden at the Round Table of Business community against the Trafficking of Human Beings
Athens, January 23, 2006

http://www.interpol.int/public/News/2006/news20060124Address.asp

Worth a read if you haven't seen it before.

[katka]

I finally saw Lilja 4 Ever. Quite a good film. Some exterirers looked like us, especially in Ostrava - industrial city with many old functionalism and decrepit buildings factories. The film was very rough, and especially in the Swedish part of me literally irritated. There was a lot of music known when I counting some downright scenic sound and Russia's trance. Overall I quite liked Lilja. It's a good atmosphere, but I did not like where the wings. I think that the angels would become each understood without the wings, which had first Volodiya and then had both.
And I watched it with eng. sub. but I quite understood Russian so it was more natural for me

[snaps]

I finally saw Lilja 4 Ever. Overall I quite liked Lilja. It's a good atmosphere, but I did not like where the wings. I think that the angels would become each understood without the wings, which had first Volodiya and then had both.

I didn't like the wings bit either. Lukas can be a little didactic about his religious faith both on-film and in interviews etc. I don't think it added anything, and following the rest of the film was a bit hopelessly optimistic for my taste.

[katka]

hmmm I agree

[Kso]

And I watched it with eng. sub. but I quite understood Russian so it was more natural for me

For me it was completely natural