Petite Maman review
London Film Festival 2021
Petite Maman is yet another flawless and moving piece from Celine Sciamma, a director whose work I have always loved. Here Sciamma reminds us of her masterful ability to evoke the experiences of children, in a film that acts as an addition to what she terms her “accidental trilogy of youth.”
After watching the film with my mum (making it a particularly impactful watch given its mother-daughter themes) at the London Film Festival, we were left sobbing and speechless for the entire walk home, a vastly different state to our usual busy and spirited chats about the latest viewings. But despite the tears it may elicit this cinematic poem carries limitless hope and soul, which pulses throughout its scenes. This is a film that ‘creeps up on you,’ quietly building emotional punch until its beautiful, cathartic close.
We meet eight-year-old Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) when her beloved grandmother dies. As she worries that she didn’t say goodbye properly, Nelly and her parents return to her Grandma’s house to begin clearing out. Her parents face conflict as they pack away the past, and it is amongst this uprooting of memory that Nelly ventures into the autumnal woods where her mother once played. Kicking around leaves and playing alone, she comes across a den being built by a young girl of the same age, Marion. As their friendship develops, the lines between past and present blur and Sciamma pushes at the realms of reality, with enriching and healing effect.
In cinemas 19 November 2021
Read my top 5 films about kids here