Petite mama (2021)

Directed by: Celine Sciamma | 73 minutes | drama | Actors: Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne, Margot Abascal, Florès Cardo, Josée Schuller, Guylène Péan

French director Céline Sciamma broke through in 2019 with the romantic drama ‘Portrait de la jeune fille en feu’. Before that breakthrough, Sciamma mainly made films about young people (‘Tomboy’, ‘Bande de filles’), films that all testified to a deep insight into the child’s mind. For the successor to ‘Portrait de la jeune fille en feu’, Sciamma returns to childhood. And how.

In Petite Maman, eight-year-old Nelly feels a little sad. Her grandmother passed away, and she couldn’t say goodbye properly. She and her mother go to her grandmother’s house, a remote house in the woods where her mother grew up as an only child. Because the house has to be emptied, Nelly spends a few days here. To help out but also to devote himself to the core business of an eight-year-old: playing!

When Nelly is wandering through the woods one day, she meets a fellow eight-year-old who is working on a tree house. Her name is Marion, just like Nelly’s mother. Nelly soon understands that she is meeting the young version of her mother here, a discovery she accepts with the jaunty flexibility of a child.

We follow the girls in their daily activities. They write a play (for about 20 characters that they all play themselves), they bake pancakes and sometimes they just mess around. But there are also the conversations. By getting to know the young versions of both her mother and grandmother, Nelly also understands a bit more about her own place in the world.

‘Petite maman’ has something of a Murakami novel in its premise. By turning reality a quarter turn, things become clear that would otherwise remain in the dark. Every scene, no matter how simple, is full of meaning. The girls’ play, the opening scene in which Nelly says goodbye to the old people in the nursing home, the intimate scenes with her father and mother. All this in a tone that is tender and sensitive, but never tacky.

With ‘Petite maman’, Sciamma shows once again that she can dive deep into the soul of a child and that she has a great deal of insight into family dynamics and childhood friendships. Some emotional intelligence is indispensable to appreciate this film, but whoever has that will enjoy a moving, wise and comforting arthouse gem for 73 minutes.