Summary
Céline Sciamma returns to demonstrate her mastery and innate understanding of formative childhood moments, interior life and familial bonds.
Following the intense ending of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, filmmaker Céline Sciamma’s highly anticipated follow-up returns to something smaller and quieter. As an exploration of youth and isolation, it harks back to her earlier work but comes with an even deeper sense of innocence and longing.
PETITE MAMAN (or ‘Little Mum’) begins shortly after the death of the 8-year-old Nelly’s (newcomer Joséphine Sanz) grandmother. While cleaning up the house she left behind, we start to see the cracks in the relationship between Nelly’s mother and father (Stéphane Varupenne).
When her mother suddenly disappears, Nelly finds herself wandering the woods. There she encounters Marion (Gabrielle Sanz), another girl her age with the same name as her mother. The two spend their days wandering the woods and contemplating existence, playing games and talking about the future.
“You always ask questions at bedtime.”
In Sciamma’s short film Pauline, released in 2010 between her debut Water Lilies and Tomboy, she explored the confession of a small girl growing up in the countryside. While PETITE MAMAN latest film doesn’t follow that short in terms of content or style, it follows a theme of crossing the threshold between childhood and adulthood and the acknowledgment of the passing of time.
It’s an once a fairy tale and a meditation on dealing with grief, trauma and finding out that one’s parents won’t always be there for you. If the first rule of children’s stories is to kill the parents, then Sciamma adapts that slightly to just usher them offstage for a bit. What follows is a beautifully constructed fable that never feels anything less than real.
What is most remarkable is that all the weight of film rests on the tiny shoulders of real life sisters Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz, both amazing in their roles. Sciamma and her young cast capture the casual acceptance of all things that kids have, and their vivid interior lives. In one scene, they play act an incredibly complex scenario in which one girl is “American but I have a Coca Cola plant in France — and there’s a recession.”
As with her previous films, Sciamma keeps her settings minimal and her framing tight. Yet there are moments of absolute beauty as well. One sequence follows the girls as they take a final voyage across a lake in a small boat together, while the electronic music of Para One (a.k.a. frequent Sciamma collaborator Jean-Baptiste de Laubier) swells to atmospheric heights.
Sciamma manages to achieve all of this in a tidy 72 minutes. Reflecting the diminutive co-stars, the filmmakers packs a big emotional journey into a small package. Not that we needed any confirmation, but Sciamma solidifies her reputation with another amazing achievement that speaks to the child in us all.
2021 | France | DIRECTOR: Céline Sciamma | WRITER: Céline Sciamma | CAST: Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne, Margot Abascal | DISTRIBUTOR: Jeonwonsa (KOR), Finecut (Global), Berlinale 2021 | RUNNING TIME: 72 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 1-5 March 2021 (GER)
