This is about the buying and selling of human beings. Lilja is in a hopeless situation, she is betrayed and then sold. The men who sell and buy her are not concerned with who she is, or why she is there. They don't want to know. They do their business and don't ask questions.
There is not much doubt this could be a true story. Moodysson wrote the script after reading about a young girl, an eastern European refugee, under strange circumstances throwing herself off a bridge in Malmö. "Sex slavery", trafficking, is out of sight, out of mind for most of us, but is still very much in effect. And most of the people on the planet live very hard lives.
The buying and selling of people is something that we all live with. We all sell ourselves to anonymous corporations, we have to do it, it is in the fabric of our societies. Liljas sale is on another scale of exploitation, of course, but it is also an extreme of what capitalism effectively means. Everything is a commodity.
The movie tells the story of of a young girls destruction by brutal socioeconomic and individual forces, both objectively and subjectively. While there is no big drama, the story is told from the perspective of Lilja. There are a few weaknesses, the portrayal of Lilja starts with things going bad, and then they turn even worse. We don't get to know Lilja outside of hardships, which probably enables us to differentiate ourselves from her. Also its a bit over-explicit in the depiction of the adult betrayal of Lilja. What if, for example, Liljas mother hadn't disappeared, the way she does in the movie, would that make the story much less tragic?
Otherwise, its a film that people "should see", there should be a 100 of these kind of movies made for every new, strained, meaningless, "J.Lo is pretty and wants romance" or "Arnie is strong, rightfully angry and wants to kill somebody", film. Instead of the other way around, the way it is today.
There is not much doubt this could be a true story. Moodysson wrote the script after reading about a young girl, an eastern European refugee, under strange circumstances throwing herself off a bridge in Malmö. "Sex slavery", trafficking, is out of sight, out of mind for most of us, but is still very much in effect. And most of the people on the planet live very hard lives.
The buying and selling of people is something that we all live with. We all sell ourselves to anonymous corporations, we have to do it, it is in the fabric of our societies. Liljas sale is on another scale of exploitation, of course, but it is also an extreme of what capitalism effectively means. Everything is a commodity.
The movie tells the story of of a young girls destruction by brutal socioeconomic and individual forces, both objectively and subjectively. While there is no big drama, the story is told from the perspective of Lilja. There are a few weaknesses, the portrayal of Lilja starts with things going bad, and then they turn even worse. We don't get to know Lilja outside of hardships, which probably enables us to differentiate ourselves from her. Also its a bit over-explicit in the depiction of the adult betrayal of Lilja. What if, for example, Liljas mother hadn't disappeared, the way she does in the movie, would that make the story much less tragic?
Otherwise, its a film that people "should see", there should be a 100 of these kind of movies made for every new, strained, meaningless, "J.Lo is pretty and wants romance" or "Arnie is strong, rightfully angry and wants to kill somebody", film. Instead of the other way around, the way it is today.