By Jake Wilson
Petite Maman ★★★★
(PG) 72 minutes
Until now, the characters in Celine Sciamma’s films seemed to be growing up. Her 18th-century queer romance Portrait of a Lady on Fire was her first film centred on adults rather than children or adolescents. It was also her biggest hit, tempting critics to suppose that Sciamma herself had “come of age” as a filmmaker.
Twins Josephine and Gabrielle Sanz play mother and daughter in Petite Maman.Credit: Neon/AP
Her follow-up, Petite Maman, complicates the picture. At eight years old, Nelly (Josephine Sanz) is Sciamma’s youngest-ever heroine – and while this may not be primarily a film for children, it’s certainly one that viewers of all ages can enjoy. Even the running time has been miniaturised: less than an hour and a quarter.
Yet artistically the film is anything but a backward step. On the contrary, it feels like the work of an explorer, which is also what Nelly becomes while staying for a few days at a house in the country, the former home of her maternal grandmother who has just died.
The small cast of characters also includes Nelly’s parents: her grieving mother (Nina Meurisse), who heads back to the city early in the story, and her youthful, easygoing father (Stephane Varupenne), who’s left with the task of packing up the house.
Left to her own devices, Nelly ventures into the woods behind the house, where she meets Marion (Gabrielle Sanz), a girl her own age living nearby. The two look remarkably alike – as well they might, considering that they’re played by twin sisters.
Though the plot of Petite Maman is not outwardly complicated, it would be a mistake to reveal much more. What can be said is that the film is conceived as both a children’s game and an uncanny ritual, extending the tradition represented in French cinema by Jacques Rivette and, before him, Jean Cocteau (clear influences on Portrait of a Lady on Fire, as well).
For the most part, what Nelly and Marion get up to together is just what you might expect, though charged with as much meaning as you care to find. They exchange secrets; they write and enact a play, dressing up as different characters; they make pancakes (milk is an especially vital substance here, no less than in Kelly Reichardt’s First Cow).
Innocent as it all sounds, Sciamma is not interested in cuteness: this pair is taken as seriously as any of her earlier characters, regardless of age. Much of the time, the game involves them addressing each other solemnly, as if a certain formal distance were necessary for the magic spell.
But there are also moments when they loosen up, the camera moves in closer, and we seem to be privy to a conspiracy between Sciamma and the actual children playing these roles – which is also magical, in a different way.
Petite Maman is in cinemas from May 5.
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