In the spring of 1986, Eastern Europe changed forever with the explosion of Chernobyl. And in the Finnish film "Light Light Light" ("Valoa Valoa Valoa"), so does the life of fifteen-year-old girl Mariia (Rebekka Baer) when a new girl, Mimi (Anni Iikkanen), arrives in her small town. The two events, Chernobyl and a youthful summer passion with Mimi, are tied together in the ineffable memories 20 years later of an adult Mariia (Laura Birn) who returns home to care for her ailing mother (Pirjo Lonka).
"Light Light Light" (Intramovies) is a special queer film, in part because of how it rhetorically aims itself at teenagers and in part because of its artistic achievements.
The historical setting of Chernobyl radiation and paranoia provide the summer romance with the gravity that partners with young love that one can only know as a teen. The world can be made or broken on the lips of one person.
For Mariia, because of the nature in which their relationship ends, the effects of the ending will last as long as she does. She now finds consolation in the arms of her aging mother, the same mother who years earlier eventually forbade her from seeing Mimi (though she was powerless to stop their meetings) due to drug rumors that, ironically, Mariia started before falling for the new girl.
The film is expertly crafted. Director Inari Niemi joins hand-held camera work with tranquil summer-time cinematography and rich colors to bring a blissful queer cinematic experience to their largely teenage audience. (The film received a warm applause at its International Premiere in Tallinn, Estonia for the 23rd Youth and Children's Film Festival.)
Hanna Kuirinlahti's editing particularly transcended my expectations of coming-of-age film. She edits across the present and the past, as well as across the spaces of the characters, not unlike a beautiful spider web of related emotions and memories.
Cinematic chemistry
In one complicated (and generalized) example of cross-cutting and sound editing, the film could transition back and forth within the scene between a youthful Mariia on her own, a distrustful and contemplative Mimi, an abstract faded purple Chernobyl sky, and Mariia in the present, all of which may be guided through the voice of a poetic Mariaa.
The voice-overs serve as sound continuity for these discordant images, images that only mean something profound and even soulful when read together. It's editing worth celebrating, especially in a summer film, a sub-genre that more often than not aggregates toward simplistic and uninspired filmmaking.
Both of the young leads captivate and their chemistry sells the grand emotions at stake. Their romance feels bigger than life, as do most childhood heartbreaks, and the Chernobyl analogy only reinforces their naturally emotive and energetically dramatic acting.
The adult Mariia works too, but the heavy lifting is done by her younger counterpart. She mostly has a reactive role and one with a lot of crying, which is vulnerable, of course, but more single-noted.
For a youthful same-sex love story, let alone one set in the 1980s, the film is also somewhat unique for not framing queer love through a lens of homophobia. Mimi is a non-stranger to being bullied and people look down on her for coming from rather abject poverty, but she's picked on for reasons beyond the scope of her sexuality, and even this is mild.
Mariia looks right through the poverty and the other pitiable aspects of Mimi's life and sees only passion and the person she loves. What others say shows no bearing on Mariia. In "Light Light Light," love is loving.
The screenplay, written by the director's sister and Finnish poet Juuli Niemi, avoids most of the dangerous tropes common to queer representation by just neglecting to converse with them from a storytelling point of view. She writes about queerness like it's just a fact of life, which it is, and that has a graceful novelty to it since so often heterosexual norms define the landscape of media depictions of queerness. Queer people have interesting stories, not just for their queerness but for their peopleness too.
And as a film aimed at a younger audience, in a country currently experiencing a rise of right-wing authoritarianism, a lesson like this could make a tangible, political difference. Unfortunately, the same could be said of our country and that makes Niemi's film relevant here (or anywhere for that matter) too.
www.intramovies.com
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