Peter Marklund's Home

Being a man never felt as bad as when I was walking out from the Dagmar cinema in Copenhagen having seen Lilja 4-Ever - the celebrated third movie by swedish director Lukas Moodysson. My expectations for the movie were set quite high and I was not disappointed. Lilja 4-Ever is a an amazingly authentic and chilly masterpiece quite different from Moodysson's previous work (Show Me Love, and Together). The movie is about child prostitution, about friendship and loneliness, hope, disillusionment, and abuse.

The disturbing topic aside, what makes this movie stand out from any other movie I've seen (including many Dogma movies) is that it seems to have no color, no bias, it is so naked, transparent, and minimalist, exposing reality in its full awfulness, and doing so in a stronger way than a documentary could. The movie itself is never in the foreground, it's even like the movie didn't exist. This is an amazing achievement by Moodysson.

Lilja 4-Ever made me realize how pathetic my own little problems are. It reminded me that friendship is what really matters. It made me wonder if I couldn't somehow help people who are suffering like Lilja.