‘Do You Love Me?’: Berlin Review

Dir/scr: Tonia Noyabrova. Ukraine, Sweden. 2023. 90mins

Beckoning adulthood is filled with the promise of untold freedom in Tonia Noyabrova’s semi-autobiographical second feature (after 2018’s Hero Of Our Time), which captures all the giddy excitement and harsh awakenings of a teenage girl on the cusp of maturity. A keenly observed coming of age story gains extra resonance from the setting of a tumultuous Ukraine in 1990, one year before the fall of the USSR. Noyabrova achieves a bittersweet blend of the personal and the political that should attract attention on its own merits but will be especially welcomed among festivals, streamers and distributors keen to support Ukrainian filmmakers.

Gains extra resonance from the setting of a tumultuous Ukraine in 1990

Kira, captivatingly played by Karyna Khymchuk, is excited by what the future may hold. At a family party to celebrate her parents’ wedding anniversary, she declares: “I’m almost seventeen. I’m almost an actress.” She cannot wait for the almost to become superfluous. Noyabrova captures a vibrant sense of her personality as Kira dances around her bedroom to Bananarama’s ‘Venus’, borrows her mother’s lipstick, pads out her bra and tries to appear older than she is. She is a drama student, and there is something of the theatrical about her as she strikes poses and tries on personalities. The men in the family have certainly noticed that she is starting to bloom.

Noyabrova has an eye for the little details that help to create a convincing portrait of the character and the times. Kira sports a pixieish haircut, has a fondness for denim and an attraction to western goods. The local black market is all out of bootleg Rambo and Terminator movies but can still supply some Jackie Chan titles. A bag of gifts from a foreign trip brings her bubblegum and a can of Pepsi. She approaches the world with a sense of confidence in herself, but there are constant reminders that she is still a child. There are three key moments in the film when she asks different people, “do you love me?”

Set in the crowded clutter of shared accommodation and gloomy rooms lit by a sickly yellow light, the film unfolds to the constant background thrum of wider events. Radio reports provide information on the collapse of the USSR, people queue outside shops in the forlorn hope they may have some food to sell, a black market thrives and people seek opportunities to profit from the misfortunes of others. Kira’s experiences are the individual piece of a much bigger picture. Over the course of the film she is faced with the crumbling of her parents marriage, a death in the family and the challenges of a first love with older medic Misha (Oleksandr Zhyla).

The couple meet when he arrives in response to her half-hearted suicide attempt. She throws herself into a proper romance, but again reveals her immaturity. “What do you want to be when you grow up,” she asks Misha. “I am grown up,” replies the 25 year-old before heading out to another gruelling night shift. Kira is shaped by all these experiences, discovering that the liberation of adulthood carries a cost in heartache, loss, the abandonment of illusions and delusions. A second family gathering for a funeral finds her dressed in black and more muted in her emotions.

Previously seen in just one film, Koroli Repu (2021), Khymchuk rises to the challenge of carrying Do You Love Me? She is in virtually every scene and is both physically and emotionally convincing as a teenager eager to join the adult world. Cinematographer Vilius Machiulskis favours close-ups on her big bewitching eyes, and Khymchuk brings the mixture of fearless energy and underlying vulnerability that the character requires. It is a performance that should earn significant attention in a film that effectively captures a memory of the past and the uncertainty of what lays ahead — both for this young woman, and her country.