Little Wonder
Short, sweet, to the point and yet profound in its observations. omg, ‘Petite Maman’ inspires the film nerd words – which, for a change, apply.
petite Maman
Director: Céline Sciamma • Writer: Céline Sciamma
Starring: Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne, Margot Abascal
France • 1hr 12mins
Opens Hong Kong July 14 • I
Grade: B+
At a slight hour and 12 minutes – officially still a short film by accepted filmmaking standards – Céline Sciamma’s latest, erm, feature, Petite Maman, is a wonder of almost pure filmmaking. It’s spare in its use of dialogue and dense in its abstracted fantasy images, and yet it somehow manages to say heaps about love, death and coming-of-age, how we process grief and, hugely, the complicated relationship that can sprout between parents and children – especially mothers and daughters. Sciamma is probably best recognised for 2019’s Palme d'Or-winning Portrait of a Lady on Fire, but she’s been delving into stories about women and girls growing up and growing into themselves for her entire career. She may have peaked with Portrait, but Tomboy (2011) remains one of the best films about gender non-conformity from pre-#MeToo/#OscarsSoWhite times, when demands for representation were still but a flicker on the media landscape. Sciamma has proven her ability to splash emotional truths on the screen, and Petite Maman is no different, with the added bonus of not presenting childhood, and the way children parse the world, as some bullshit realm of magical elves defined by bright primary colours and random whimsy. And I defy any woman with a mother not to recognise the unspoken language between mother and daughter here.
How familiar is this? Very
The story couldn’t be simpler. We begin with eight-year-old Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) going from room to room in what appears to be a provincial French nursing home. She’s saying good-bye to the residents she’s clearly become acquainted with over some time, ending in a room that’s being cleared out. The bed has been stripped and a woman, her Mother (Nina Meurisse), is collecting the last of some personal items. Nelly’s grandmother has just died. Nelly, The Mother, and The Father (Stéphane Varupenne) finish up and hit the road to the grandmother’s house to clear out that too. Nelly, being an easily distracted eight-year-old, wanders out into the woods looking for the cabin her mother – who’s quite suddenly up and vanished from the house – built as a child growing up in the area, and meets up with another girl, Marion (Gabrielle Sanz). They form a tight bond as only eight-year-olds can, in a few short days, encouraged in some ways by Marion’s mother (Margot Abascal). Knowing anymore would reduce the film’s subtle, slow burn power (not by much, but still) and detract from its revelations. It’s best to just let them wash over you as they do Nelly.
You don’t need 150 minutes to tell a story…
There’s not a lot to say about Petite Maman when you talk about narrative. It’s a few days in Nelly’s life after a significant loss. Is everything in Nelly’s imagination? Is there a break in the time-space continuum in the woods? Does it matter? No. All that matters is that Nelly spends a few days reconciling her grandmother’s death, reframing what she knows about her own mother, and possibly connecting the generational dots between gran and herself. Sciamma has no time for vapid music cues that tell us when to feel sad or when we should be surprised; there’s no score. Instead she lets silent looks, quietude and small intimacies tell the story (such as it is). Cinematographer Claire Mathon, who shot Spencer and Mati Diop’s luminous Atlantiques in 2019, does a fair amount of heavy lifting in Petite Maman, making sure every frame is impeccably composed and lit, but never flashy or egregious, and ensuring the young Sanz girls have room for their naturalistic and resonant performances. It’s rare movies that pivot on children are this nuanced (and not something I want to set fire to on sight), but it helps that Sciamma doesn’t position them as such. Is it melancholy? Yes, but it’s also hopeful in its suggestion that Nelly and Mother have found that common ground so many girls and their moms struggle to find. — DEK