Darling, Do You Love Me?

"Darling, Do You Love Me?" is a 4-minute experimental black-and-white short film from 1968, functioning as a satirical parody of romantic obsession. Germaine Greer — pre-"The Female Eunuch" and then known as a provocateur through her work at OZ magazine — stars as a large, vampiric, terrifyingly amorous woman who relentlessly cajoles, pursues, and physically assaults a meek, mild-mannered man (played by Alister Burke) while repeatedly demanding to know "Darling, do you love me?" The woman oscillates between seductive pleading and violent assault, escalating in intensity with each refrain of the question. The short ends darkly: the man succumbs to her strangling hands and, as he expires, gasps out "I love you." The film operates as both a black comedy and a parody of Greer's own media persona — casting her as the archetypal suffocating lover taken to grotesque extremes. Directed by Bob Whittaker and Martin Sharp, it presents a cynical, comic view of love as a destructive compulsion.

Sources: ACMI collection description, IMDb search result, Letterboxd/web search snippet