Petite Maman

Directed by Celine Sciamma - 10/10

After unveiling a masterpiece with Portrait of a Lady on Fire, French director Celine Sciamma has returned, replacing the grandiosity of her previous work with a cozy, nostalgic intimacy.

The cameras of Petite Maman tenderly track a few days in Nelly's life, a young girl visiting her mother’s childhood home after her grandmother's death. Upon exploring the surrounding woods, she meets another girl whose life mysteriously mirrors her own intergenerational experiences. I’ll leave it at that, because this film is one that should be approached without much prerequisite knowledge. The viewer should experience the tender discoveries along with the characters.  

The film feels homemade, not in a rough-around-the-edges sense, but in a deeply personal sense. In an interview with New Yorker Magazine, Sciamma said that she designed the scenery with the goal of replicating the ambiance of various locations from her upbringing, and that painstaking effort immediately resonates with the viewer. The set was illuminated with lamps from her own home, and the characters were modeled after maternal figures from her own childhood, even down to the sound that the characters’ shoes make. 

Though these little touches are a deep-seated part of Celine Sciamma’s personal history, they strike a chord with the viewer as well. Small sensory details – like the snap of overalls clasps or the clatter of fallen branches as they knock into each other - stir up nostalgia for anyone, allowing this particular personal portrait to intertwine itself with our own childhood memories. Cinematographer Claire Mathon (who also shot Portrait of a Lady on Fire and Spencer) expertly captures childhood curiosity, using her camera to showcase the excitement of young conversation or the unease of drifting shadows in the moonlight. 

Perhaps the most pertinent theme of the movie is the idea that there is an inherent bittersweetness within the relationship between parent and child, because each may feel that they must give themselves away for the other. This dismay is rooted in fundamental care, but sometimes it prevents one from truly understanding the other. Petite Maman bridges this gap; the bridge might be small, teetering, and far from complete, but it’s there. When Nelly wraps her arms around her mother from the backseat as the blur of orange and yellow foliage sweeps behind them, the bridge grows a little sturdier.

Petite Maman embodies the timelessness of memories and family in a subdued but incredibly raw way. Though limited, the dialogue is intensely emotional and evocative, as smooth and comforting as the images it coincides with. Towards the end of the film, there is a moment where one girl asks, “Are you from the future?” and the other answers, “I come from the path just behind you.” It’s a simple exchange but elegantly poetic and gentle, delineating the sweet beauty and brevity of childhood whimsy. 

Petite Maman is movie that's so well made and close to perfect that it doesn’t feel like a movie at all. It’s just a brief moment in childhood, and we get to sit and watch silently from start to finish. It’s small, mesmerizing, and beautiful - a hypnotic wonder.

Petite Maman was released on April 22, 2022 and is currently in US theatres.