Director: Céline Sciamma
Writer: Céline Sciamma
Stars: Joséphine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, Nina Meurisse, Stéphane Varupenne
Synopsis: An eight-year-old girl visits her mother’s childhood home after the death of her grandmother and meets a friend who helps her get close to her mother’s memories.
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Director Céline Sciamma catapulted herself into the international film consciousness with her gorgeous Portrait of a Lady on Fire in 2019, one of the best films of that year. She follows it with the similarly simple yet beautifully rendered Petite Maman, a film about childhood and holding close the memories that we cherish. While Petite maman may not boast the same emotional impact of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, it still delivers a delicate and transcendent experience.
The film (in French with English subtitles) centers on 8-year-old Nelly (Joséphine Sanz), whose grandmother has just passed away. When her parents, played by Nina Meurisse and Stéphane Varupenne, take her to her grandmother’s house in the country in order to clear it out, Nelly revels in the opportunities to play with her mother’s childhood toys and explore the woods next door. She wants to learn more about her mother’s childhood growing up in the house, but her mother is finding it difficult to reminisce while still grieving her mother’s death, so Nelly is forced to color in some of her mother’s memories by herself.
While out in the woods, Nelly meets Marion (Gabrielle Sanz), another eight-year-old girl who Nelly becomes instant friends with. They play together, building a fort in the woods. It’s not until we notice the striking resemblance between the two that the audience realizes that Marion is the imagined embodiment of Nelly’s mother when she was Nelly’s age. When Nelly goes to Marion’s house to visit, it is the same house that Nelly’s parents are cleaning out, but twenty-five years earlier. And when we see Marion’s mother warmly greeting Nelly, we realize that is the grandmother who Nelly just lost.
In the hands of another director, this plot twist could be played as either overly saccharine or just plain creepy. But, in Sciamma’s hands, it plays like a beautiful ode to memory, to the simplicity of childhood and the desire to hold close those who we love. The title, Petite Maman, literally translates to “small Mom,” amplifying the generational bridge that is crossed in this film.
But what makes Petite Maman such a beautiful and warm experience is not just the longing that Nelly has to be closer to her mother’s memories, but the fact that Nelly finds such a pure joy in seeking them out. A child’s reaction to death is not the melancholy and sorrowful one that adults tend to linger in, it is instead one that triggers a curiosity and a desire to envelop themselves in memories. While Nelly’s mother chose to run away from her grief, Nelly instead chose to embrace the beauty of it, wanting to immerse herself in the life that was lived. While she does see her grandmother in these memory dreams, it is the memories and childhood experiences of her own mother that Nelly wants to absorb, to be closer to her, to know her better.
It is a beautiful film, in both spirit and production. Cinematographer Claire Mathon, who is also getting rave reviews for her stunning work in Spencer, and who also shot Portrait of a Lady on Fire, creates yet another stunning palette of shots here, taking the audience into a child’s view of the world, seeing the world through a child’s eyes, lowering the camera to Nelly’s level so we feel and see everything she sees and feels. Sciamma hones in on what it feels like to be a child, especially an only child, who revels in their time spent exploring and playing by themselves. The world is a place of discovery for a child thirsty to take it all in, and Sciamma depicts it perfectly, with the help of two exceptionally cast twins who are absolutely perfect.
The real-life Sanz twins, who have never acted on screen before, are the reason Petite Maman is able to be everything Sciamma designs it to be. Despite being twins, each one plays their character with discernably unique qualities, providing just enough separation, yet still intrinsically similar. Their obvious fondness and comfort with each other jumps off the screen, as their interactions feel natural, never forced, especially when the camera is allowed to simply watch them be together. Their believability and natural ease on screen is what makes everything else work.
At just seventy minutes long, Petite Maman is a brisk and monumentally effective film that wins over with its heart and impresses with its structure, a film that may not be a towering achievement of cinema, but is an engaging examination of the curiosities of childhood and the power of memory that will stay with you long after the credits roll.
