Flipside Movie Emporium

[JoeE]

Eric, I just read your Best of 2003. I was really happy to see Raising Victor Vargas and Tully on there. Those were both really great films.

I noticed you saw Lilya 4-ever and listed it as an honorable mention. I've been trying to find it for rent or sale SOMEWHERE with no luck. Do you have a full review?

[beltmann]

I saw Lilja-4-ever at the Milwaukee International Film Festival, and wrote only a capsule review:

"Lilya 4-ever B+

Lukas Moodysson, Sweden, 2002

The most incandescent performance I saw at the festival was given by Oksana Akinshina, a high school amateur who plays an Estonian teenager first abandoned and then tricked into sexual slavery. Like the nihilistic industrial-metal that announces it, her ruthlessly grim story dropkicks the audience -- in the ears, in the stomach, in the heart. It might be tempting to dismiss this relentless torture chamber as shock neorealism, with nothing more to ask than isn't this awful? Yet its ugliness is easily trumped by Moodysson's abiding compassion and artistic vision -- his strokes only get darker, bolder, and more divine as the film progresses. "

Other thoughts from the festival can be found here.

Moodysson is frequently compared to Bergman (another favorite), and while Bergman's canvas bleeds the same kind of pained humanity, I doubt Bergman had the showmanship instincts that would have prompted him to jumpstart a movie by blaring Rammstein at the audience. Although I wasn't impressed by Together, I'm still a Moodysson believer: Lilja is a major work, and Show Me Love is a masterpiece. Have you seen that one?

Eric
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"When I was in Barcelona they showed pornography on regular television. I'm assuming it's the same way in Mexico since they also speak Spanish." - IMDb user comment

[JoeE]

No, I haven't seen Show Me Love. It's now on the top of my list with Lilya 4-ever, though.