2002

Lilya, 16, is another lost soul in the slums of the Soviet Union. abandoned by her mother and ostracized by her neighbors for making ends meet as a prostitute, she sees a way out: a young, smooth-talking man in a reliable car who takes her under his wing and makes promises of a new life in Sweden. it’s almost too good to be true, especially to her best friend and fellow outcast Volodya: he tells her over and over again that the man, Andrei, is just using her for sex. it couldn’t be true. her beau gives her a fake passport and tells her to go on ahead while he makes excuses to stay behind and come later. Andrei’s boss meets her at the airport in Stockholm. he takes her to a furnished apartment where the doorknob from the inside is broken. he tells her she’ll start work tomorrow. she bathes and ignorantly enjoys her new bounties. the man returns the next day with groceries and rapes her. he tells her Andrei isn’t coming. he drops her off at a john’s flat and pimps her out for sex. her fate is sealed, as much as she tries to resist. she cuts her hair against her captor’s wishes and he takes her to a busy department store to buy a tuque. it’s clear that he’s told her to keep quiet or else she’ll be punished. there are people everywhere. she holds her tongue. her face tells us that she wants to scream; to run; to try to get away, back to her old life in Russia where at least she could dream. and the audience screams right back at her. but we realize that, more maybe then the fear of her predicament, is the fear of being outside of her element: of being away from the low-income housing she’s known her whole life, far from the city and the reality of her dreams, to here, still lost in a dream that’s become a nightmare.

this was on quite a few “most depressing movies” lists and while it wasn’t as disturbing as those previews made me expect, it was still thoroughly engrossing as far as “how bad can things get” plots go. if you like this one then The Whistleblower from 2010 is another good watch.