
            The film starts with a figure running despreately towards a motorway bridge. A factory is seen in the background, billowing out smoke to a soundtrack of Mein Hertz Brennt by Rammstein. The figure turns around and we are introduced to Lilya (Oksana Akinshina), who has recently been badly beaten.The movie is about Lilya's past. Lilya lives a fairly bleak life with her mother in a run down apartment block in a poor town in an unnamed former republic of the Soviet Union. Lilya is a normal teenage girl albeit poor and pretty impoverished. Lilya's mother (Lyubov Agapova) informs Lilya that they are emigrating to the US with her new boyfriend. At the last minute, Lilya is left behind in the care of her aunt Anna (Liliya Shinkaryova). She is forced to move into a dirty flat (whilst her aunt moved into the bigger and nicer flat that Lilya and her mother used to live in) is just the beginning and a succession of miseries are thrust upon Lilya. Lilya's best friend encourages her to join her in prostituting herself for some extra cash but Lilya decides not to. However, when the friend's father finds money made from prostitution, the friend claims that she was the one sat at the bar whilst Lilya was out sleeping with men for the money.
Not only is Lilya's reputation at home ruined but the story begins to spread throughout the school. Now abandoned, Lilya has to turn to prostitution to help her get money together. One glimmer of hope comes in the form of Volodya (Artyom Bogucharskiy), who she forms a close friendship with. He is also abused and rejected by his alcoholic father. Lilya buys him a basketball with the money earned from her prostitution that week but Volodya's father pops it. Lilya's hope is once again reignited in the form of Andrei (Pavel Ponomaryov) who becomes her boyfriend and offers her a job in Sweden.  After arriving in Sweden, Lilya is introduced to her future 'employer' (in reality, he is a pimp) and taken to a nearby empty apartment where he imprisons her. Lilya is then raped by the pimp and forced to perform sexual acts on all of the clients. All the abuse is seen from Lilya's point of view. Meanwhile, back in the former Soviet Union, Volodya commits suicide seemingly devastated that Lilya left him to his fate. In the form of an angel, Volodya appears before Lilya and transports her to the roof on Christmas Day where he gives the world as a present. Lilya finds it cold and unwelcoming. After one escape attempt from the apartment, Lilya is brutally beaten by her pimp but manages to escape again. Finally, she reaches the bridge and much to the distress of Volodya (who regrets killing himself), she jumps off and commits suicide as a continuation from the beginning scene.  Lilya and Volodya are seen as angels playing basketball on the roof, safe from everything the world can throw at them.
    

Artyom Bogucharskiy

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