“Petite Maman” (2021) is Celine Sciamma’s latest film, who won accolades for her breathtaking prior feature, “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” (2019). Nelly (Josephine Sanz) goes to her mother’s childhood home with her disconnected parents to clean out the place when she encounters a little girl, Marion (Gabrielle Sanz), who is almost identical to Nelly, building a tree house and living in a similar house. Nelly figures out the impossible and inexplicable, embraces the opportunity to explore her family’s past, spend time with people that she loved and lost and appreciate her own life’s circumstances without feeling responsible for things outside of her control.
I usually do not like films with child actors, but these kids are disturbingly mature in the emotions that they convey. There is no violence or sexual content, but the themes are mature: grief, loss, love, self, destiny. “Petite Maman” pivots on the intensity of little girls’ relationships with their mothers and their friends when these different people feel like extensions of oneself, but she can never get closer than she is to her mother, no matter how tight the relationship is. The bond between little girls is fragile because it ignites by chance. There is nothing very complex to explain why some children just catch on other than meeting at the right time and place, but those bonds do not always break of their own volition. Adult decisions to move often separate childhood friends, but unlike American films, there is no attempt at lying to themselves or each other that they will stay in touch and stay close.
“Petite Maman” is an interesting entry of premise fiction or a creative piece that explores realistic reactions to an extraordinary circumstance. As an American, I want answers to questions that are irrelevant to the central premise of the movie, but would dominate the narrative in an American film. How do I explain this extraordinary circumstance: unreliable narrator, supernatural or science? For Sciamma, it does not matter, and once the film ended, I realized that if I had known that all the narrative concerns that I had for the characters did not matter, I could have appreciated the film more. By using a premise that is fraught with concern, Sciamma is not just taking fear outside of the genre, but removing it from death and loss. Sciamma seems to be asking herself and audiences to appreciate time and people while you have them instead of fearing losing them.
“Petite Maman” begins with farewells and an off-screen death. When Nelly gets the opportunity that she hoped for, a second chance, she runs away from it then occupies the same space that the person whom she lost once possessed. It is a haunting without apparitions. You and your ancestors become your own ghosts. The nature of generational existence is sufficiently supernatural. It is “A Christmas Carol” without ghosts or alternate realities.
There are some provocative themes in “Petite Maman.” The girls make up stories and characters for themselves in which they are lovers, and there is a mysteriously murdered husband. I probably would never frame this play as anything other than a scene that could have been in “Little Women” though a little grittier than typical American fare. While pretending, their game reveals retrospectively her mother’s loneliness, the difference between secrets and having no one to talk to. While Nelly’s parents function together, there are signs that they are no longer together. They sleep separately. As Nelly discusses her mom’s childhood, and the father admits to not knowing that detail, the mother explains that he does not remember. Later alone with her father, Nelly gets her father to admit that he does not listen. Nelly is thirsty for every detail about her mother, and the father is good natured but oblivious and only concerned with moving logistics. Nelly is the most mature and knowing person in every room even when adults are present.
Nelly, a little girl, is more attentive to her mother’s emotional needs than her father. Sciamma shoots the scenes between the little girls and Nelly and her mother reminiscent of the burgeoning romantic relationship in “Portrait of a Lady on Fire”: the protagonist’s point of view of staring intensely at the back of someone’s head that she wants to see more of, journeying together in boats, mysterious gatherings in the woods. “Petite Maman” seems to be exploring Nelly’s nascent seeds of same sex attraction starting with Nelly’s mom. While it is not sexual per se, that thread of soul mate closeness found in “Portrait of a Lady on Fire” can be felt in this film too though Marion does not necessarily reciprocate in the same manner.
Once Nelly reveals the fantastic circumstance that caused their meeting to Marion, Marion becomes wistful and mature. There is a scene between the girls and Nelly’s father that feels as if Marion is suddenly able to tap into an unspoken source of wisdom and experience to guide Nelly into convincing their father to spend more time together. The relationship between the girls shift from playmates to something that is not real yet. While this shift works for the story and leads to some compelling actor, I did find it disturbing. “Petite Maman” depicts a form of parentification. I treat kids like little adults and take them seriously, but when do little girls get to be little girls. I am not saying that Sciamma is advocating for any of this, but reflecting an uncomfortable reality of little girls having to assume roles way earlier than is appropriate, and men being clueless and unable to adequately care for the girls and women around them. Nelly nurtures her mother in exchange for her mother having to be one too early.
“Petite Maman” also addresses mental illness in a beautiful and understated way. There is one time that Nelly acts like a kid when she admits that she feels responsible for her mother’s distance, and her mom reassures Nelly, “You didn’t invent my sadness.” Sciamma creates a moment that most kids never have-to utter their worst fears of causing disruption and revulsion then to have those fears assuaged. Before this moment, the audience only thinks that we are witnessing a mother’s grief, but it casts light into the parents’ affable distance and the mother’s actions after Nelly admits her regret over losing their relative. Nelly is too young to understand that her mom struggles with mental illness issues, and as a seasoned adult, I did not see the signs while watching the movie. Unlike an American movie which sensationalizes mental illness, in this French movie, it is almost indistinguishable from normal behavior considering the circumstances but still given the respect of being a distinct struggle.
“Petite Maman” felt as if it was related to “Titane” (2021). A child is trying to get closer to their parent, but the films are negative images of the other in terms of gender and who is distant and who is healing. Both films have inexplicable phenomenon as a catalyst driving the characters to resolution of their issues. While both movies end with a comprehensive emotional resolution of parent and child, they land on opposite sides of the emotional spectrum.
I would not have seen “Petite Maman” if I had not known that Sciamma directed it. I did not love it as much as “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” but Sciamma succeeds at prioritizing the emotions over the sci fi fantasy elements of her narrative thus proving again that the French win at cinematic exploration of humanity.
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If you are willing to indulge me, it felt as if time travel existed because of powerful emotions: the loss of their grandmothers, the birthday, the surgery. Loneliness and loss fueled it.
