Petite maman

Great movie! A wonderfull masterpiece of love, loss, magic and time.

This director surprises me more and more, with her delicate stories, her sensitive photography, and this film is a clear example of what she can create.

From the writer-director of Portrait of a Lady on Fire comes yet another tender, touching & heartfelt drama fantasy that may not have the same intense, intoxicating passion brewing under the surface but it sure exhibits a similar intimacy in its approach. Petite Maman is a delicately crafted story that looks at love, loss, grief & innocence through the eyes of an 8-year old girl.

Written & directed by Céline Sciamma, the film is only 70 mins long and follows a young girl coping with the death of her grandmother by bonding with her mother. Sciamma's nuanced portrait of childhood & imagination allows her to address the necessary themes by merging harsh realism with fantastical escape, thus preserving the innocence & purity of youth, while narrating her tale with sensitivity.

Despite the brief runtime, Sciamma never hurries through the proceedings and lets the story unfold & unravel at its own pace. The film is also shot with elegance, told with compassion & benefits from sincere performances from the whole cast. Joséphine Sanz plays her part with emotional honesty under Sciamma's supervision and she is well-supported by her twin sister who plays the 8-year old version of her mother.

Overall, Petite Maman finds beauty in simplicity and is another fascinating addition to Céline Sciamma's oeuvre. A sweet & poignant story about coping & bonding between a daughter & her mother that's rendered on screen with unfailing warmth & tenderness, Sciamma's latest is as arresting on visual fronts as it is stirring on the emotional scale, and doesn't make the mistake of overstaying its welcome. Definitely recommended.

Fairy tales do come true, or so Disney would have us believe. The French, as in writer/director Celine Sciamma's Petite Maman, make a whimsical tale come true by using a technique Walt would have appreciated, magical realism.

When an eight-year-old girl, Nelly (Josephine Sanz), meets her eight-year-old mother, Marion (Gabrielle Sanz), not only do they make you believe, but they also give dignity to a deeply-embedded longing we have to know our parents when they were our age.

This all-too-brief 72 min fantasy reaches an imaginative high whereby the soft and precise longings of a bright adolescent girl to hold onto her mother take place in the traditional forest of fairy tales. Mom had built a hut here long ago and now emerges to greet her daughter, same age 8. They bond immediately, laugh girlie silly, and generally devour their friendship.

As in fairy tales and life itself, the romance must end, especially since mom's operation on her leg is imminent, evidenced by her using her cane. Although the timing of the events is not always linear, Sciamma has made it clear she is not interested in accuracy but rather in the honesty of the emotions and the arc of the characters.

While Sciamma crafted a far more popular, potboiling Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Petite Maman is like its title, a minimalist ode to the challenges of longing inherent in the mother-daughter romance. There will never be enough time, and no one will be able to know completely the most important person in their lives. Yet, Sciamma shows that small moments loom large in the memory, as when Nelly feeds mom cheese puffs from the back of the car, while Marion is driving. It's a ritual that binds.

The Sanz twins (they call themselves "sisters born on the same day) are like fantasy actors, smart but not overbearing, never too cute but abnormally insightful. They deliver the emotional heart of this low-key film that posits a child may fantastically come to know a mother as a real person. Petite Maman is a lyrical song to mother and daughters, who never know their mothers well enough until a brilliant filmmaker shows them how.

The best fantasy this year, the best mother-daughter tale ever.

As "Petite Maman" (2021 release from France; 72 min) opens, 8 yo Nelly and her mom Marion are dealing with the recent passing of Marion's mom/Nelly's grandmother. The grandmother's house contains tons of childhood memories and things. Once day while playing in the nearby woods, Nelly meets another 8 yo girl, whose name is Marion...

Couple of comments; this is the latest from French writer-director Celine Sciamma ("Portrait of a Lady on Fire"). Here Sciamma looks at how an 8 yo girl processes the loss of her grandmother. "I never get to say a proper goodbye", she laments to her mom. Things really get interesting when Nelly meets 8 yo Marion. The scale of the movie may be small, but its emotional reach is enormous. I was completely blown away by the lead performances of the young twins (Joséphine Sanz as Nelly and Gabrielle Sanz as Marion). In case you are wondering whether the movie's short running time hurts the viewing experience, don't worry. The movie comes to a natural close and you will be surprised how deeply invested you had become with these characters.

"Petite Maman" premiered at the 2021 Berlinale to immediate and widespread critical acclaim. If the movie get a US theatrical release, it certainly didn't make it to where I live (in Cincinnati.). Fortunately, the movie started streaming on Hulu just a few days ago, and that is where I caught it. If you are in the mood for a top notch foreign movie about dealing with grief from a young girl's perspective, I'd readily suggest you check this out and draw your own conclusion.

... just like eight year old Nelly, whose vivid imagination is brought to life when she meets her doppelganger Marion after her mother absents herself from her life for a few days. Beautifully filmed and acted, it may get you reflecting on your own perceptions of the world when you were that age or even as you got older, if you were lucky enough to carry that imagination with you.