Valoa valoa valoa 2023 Movie Review

『Even After 20 Years, the First Love Remains Vivid — The Weight of Guilt Never Faced』

🎥 Film Overview

🎬 Title: Valoa valoa valoa (English title: Light Light Light, 2023)
🌍 Country: 🇫🇮 Finland
🎞️ Genre: Coming-of-age / Romance / Drama
🗓️ Production & Release: Lucy Loves Drama, Tekele Productions, etc. / 2023 / Feature film
📢 Director: Inari Niemi
🖋️ Screenplay: Anna Brotkin, Topi Kukila
📖 Original Novel: Valoa valoa valoa – Vilja-Tuulia Huotarinen (2011)
📺 Platform: Vimeo on Demand, Festival Circuits

👩‍💼 Cast: Rebekka Baer – as Mariia
Anni Iikkanen – as Mimi

🧩 Deep Story Exploration (Spoilers)

💥 The Symbolic Connection Between “Two Explosions”

The film intertwines two different types of “explosions” to drive its narrative forward.

• The Chernobyl Explosion (Collective Trauma): Set in 1986, the backdrop immediately injects the story with anxiety, fear, and an apocalyptic mood. Constant radio warnings about radioactive fallout, iodine pills, and the dread of contamination weigh heavily on both Mariia and the entire village — an external threat that symbolizes the impossibility of eternal young love and the fragility of reality itself.

• Mariia’s “Explosion of Consciousness” (Personal Awakening): Her encounter with Mimi is like an emotional nuclear detonation that bursts into her previously closed world. This first love — especially as a queer awakening — fills her with light (Valoa) and overwhelming intensity. Just like the Chernobyl explosion, this eruption of feeling is uncontrollable, beautiful, yet potentially destructive.

→ Symbolism: The “invisible threat” of Chernobyl mirrors the inner darkness and buried secrets that Mimi carries — domestic violence, her mother’s suicide, and social prejudice. Their love becomes a temporary oasis, a fragile shelter from both the external toxicity (radiation) and the internal toxicity (trauma).

🌱 Mariia and Mimi: Savior and Destroyer

Their relationship transcends a simple romance, exposing the intersection of class and trauma.

• Mimi as “The Light”: Mimi brings unpredictability and vitality into Mariia’s well-ordered life. Her freedom, confidence, and defiance illuminate Mariia’s world like “light, light, light.” To Mariia, Mimi represents the opening of all possibilities.

• Mariia’s Guilt and Betrayal: Their love harbors a fatal crack. When Mariia mistakenly believes Mimi is a drug addict and fails to correct this misunderstanding, the silence grows into an abyss. Coming from an upper-class family, Mariia falls prey to social prejudice, and her inaction transforms into betrayal and lifelong guilt.

• Adult Mariia’s Return and Healing: The story adopts a frame narrative as adult Mariia returns to her hometown to care for her ill mother. Through this, she revisits the past, not merely to reminisce, but to confront her guilt and seek forgiveness for Mimi. Her journey becomes one of healing — learning why the “light” disappeared, and how to free herself from her own darkness.

🌓 The Contrast Between Light and Darkness

Director Inari Niemi enhances the emotional density of this story through deliberate contrasts in tone and imagery.

• The Radiant Summer Light (Valoa): Finland’s lush forests, lakes, and blazing summer skies visualize an ephemeral paradise where their love blooms. The vivid, luminous cinematography mirrors Mariia’s intoxicating feelings for Mimi — intense, blinding, and fleeting.

• Ominous Tones and Foreshadowing: Even the happiest moments are paired with retro filters and muted, shadowy colors, suggesting an impending end. Cinematographer Sari Aaltonen symbolically expresses the invisible danger of Chernobyl through purple hues and dark clouds, amplifying the film’s undercurrent of unease.

• Normalization of Queer Narrative: Despite being a queer love story, the film avoids the usual tropes of coming-out pain or social struggle. Mariia and Mimi’s love is portrayed as simply a fact of life, while their tragedy stems not from sexuality but from class, trauma, and human error. This approach gives the film a refreshing, mature tone within queer cinema.

🌟 First Love Under the Shadow of Chernobyl — The Radiation of Memory

Valoa valoa valoa carries a depth far beyond a simple melodrama. By connecting the historical disaster of Chernobyl with personal trauma and first love, the film explores how light can both give life and become dangerous. It poetically suggests that confronting our past guilt and reclaiming our lost “light” is the path toward forgiveness and reconciliation.

🎯 Personal Rating

💕 Romance Intensity: ♥♥♥
⭐ Overall Rating: ★★★★☆