Valoa valoa valoa

Inari Niemi: Valoa valoa valoa (FI 2023) with Anni Iikkanen (Mimi) and Rebekka Baer (Mariia).

I have loved Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen's novel Valoa valoa valoa (2011) ever since it was published and it has a place of honour in our home library. Set in 1986, the year of Chernobyl, it is a growing-up story of two 14 year old girls. 

I have liked the films of Inari Niemi, including Robin - the Movie, Kesäkaverit, Joulumaa and Tyttöbileet. But Valoa valoa valoa, based on a screenplay by Juuli Niemi, is on a new level of achievement. 

The title has multiple meanings. It is about the light of the coming summer. It is also about a nuclear catastrophe that puts mankind in danger.

It is the story of a first love, an experiment that brings "light light light" to one's whole life and illuminates one's entire being.

It is a love that transcends class barriers. Mariia is from a well-to-do home. Mimi is from a broken home.

It is a love that starts with a fatal misunderstanding. Mariia gets a false impression that Mimi is on drugs. The misunderstanding casts a shadow on Mimi's status at school and Mariia's home. Mariia never corrects the mistake, and the unhealed guilt disturbs her through life.

The love between the girls transcends convention. It liberates. Inari Niemi conveys this in lyrical, pantheistic images full of life force and a sense of nature. The movie does not feel like a literary adaptation. It breathes its own cinematic life. And what could be more cinematic than the motif of light, also in the sense of enlightenment: growing beyond one's prejudices, having the courage of one's convictions, open to all senses and possibilities of experience.

I thank Mox Mäkelä for recommending this movie. Last year was full of big changes in my life, and I missed valuable movies. I'm glad to have caught this one. Valoa valoa valoa goes up onto my list of the best films of 2023.