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deanc2000
Reviews
Zhestokiy romans (1984)
Another "classic" that disappointed me.
I started to watch this film because of all the glowing reviews. The main character is Juliy, who is a postman, and he's trying to court this girl even though everyone just ignores him. The girl is in love with this rich Sergey dude, and he's always showing off to her. She is also being pursued by a banker, but then he gets arrested. Sergey leaves without saying a word, and then now is Juliy chance to win her heart. What does he do? He ruins the whole thing by getting drunk and embarrassing her. So the character I was rooting for the whole time, ends up to be another idiot. Sergey comes back and romances her, but in the end tells her he's engaged.
So, there's no happy ending here, very disappointing.
Lilja 4-ever (2002)
Great HALF film
I saw this movie for the first time about 4 days ago. I have waited for a few days to say my piece here on this forum because I find people very defensive about this movie for some reason. Now this is my humble opinion, I don't count myself to be an expert on movies. I'm pretty easy going as a person, although I know what people can go through because I'm a mental health provider and I see it everyday (or most days at least).
To cut to the chase, we get this poor teen girl 15-16 yo, who lives on the fringes of her society, trying to find her way, trying find who she is, trying to fit in, trying to have fun while doing it. She gets into a streak of very bad luck. Her mother abandons her, she has to live in a squalid apartment, her next guardian (her aunt) is abusive, she is doing poor in school (although it doesn't seem like she was trying very much), and people blame her for prostituting herself when it was her (best?) friend who really did it. Along the way she meets this younger boy, Volodja,( who is also trying to find his way, being abused too by his parents, and they make a connection. Well, the next bit of bad luck befalls her, she decides to take a chance on this new friend she meets and travels to Sweden to start a new life with him. Well, turns out it was a scam, and she becomes a sex slave for this monster named witek (I'm not going to dignify this character by capitalizing his name). He has her locked in an apartment which locks from the outside only (she can't get out). He tells her that he would kill her if she tried to escape or send his people to "wait on" her and kill her back in Russia if she did escape. During this time, the ghost of Volodja appears to her and helps her get through this period. All this is leading up to the ultimate climax, or should I properly label it, anti-climax of the film.
Now the ghost of Volodja somehow helps her to realize that witek forgot to lock the door one day, and she leaves, and freedom was hers. Her luck has just changed for the better. Happy moment right? WRONG! NO, for some God Awful reason, instead of being happy that she is free, Lilja becomes more upset, runs away from people who could have helped her (the police), and commits suicide. I guess she liked bad luck and wanted it to keep going. This didn't make sense to me. Why would someone who has just been freed from a horrible situation do this? Along with killing the main character of this film, this killed almost all my appreciation of the movie. To offer several analogies, Imagine: 1)In the movie Rocky, Just before the big fight, Rocky freaks out and kills himself, end of movie.
2)In The Count of Monte Cristo, After escaping from the prison that he's spent 13 years in, Dantes just gives up and kills himself, end of movie.
3)In Pulp Fiction, after Bruce Willis refuses to take a dive in the fight and becomes the target of the mob, he doesn't run, he freaks out instead and jumps off a bridge, end of movie.
4)Even in the famous Russian movie "Moscow does not believe in tears", which I enjoyed and which is rated LOWER than this movie, the main character becomes pregnant, but the father refuses to acknowledge her nor the baby. She doesn't have the baby, persevere, and work her way to the top. No, she freaks out and jumps off a bridge.
There are countless other analogies I could draw. My point is... up until the end, this movie was perfectly fine. The end just ruined it. I think this movie is only half way done, and the second half just wasn't made. It is a good half film. And for that I will only rate it 5/10. I encourage anyone else who agrees with me to do similar because if we continue to rate this kind of movie high, more of it's kind will be made. Do we really want more half-movies made? Also, what does it tell people who are stuck in tough situations like this? Well, just commit suicide and everything will be fine? NO NO NO NO NO.
Now Moodysson, you just go back and make that second half. We'll all be waiting patiently.