Celine Sciamma builds a kids’ fantasy world in her beautiful and emotional film Petite Maman. However, the film is not only filled with excitement and fun but also suffering, detachment, loss, and pain. After her grandmother’s sad demise, a little girl named Nelly (Josephine Sanz) is taken to her mother Marion’s (Nina Meurisse) country house where she spent her childhood. There, she gets to see and befriend her mother Marion (Gabrielle Sanz) the same age as her. Together they build a tree house. Through this intense friendship, Nelly discovers her mother’s childhood, which fills her with overwhelming happiness. In Petite Maman, Filmmaker Celine Sciamma highlights some important issues like loss, grief, death, separation, merging of generations and identities, fantasies, love, and friendship.
An eight-year-old little girl named Nelly has recently lost her grandmother. The family is grief-stricken and travels to Nelly’s grandmother’s country house where Nelly’s mother Marion spent her childhood days. Much shocked and devastated by her mother’s sad demise, Marion leaves the country house without bidding goodbye to Nelly. While walking across the nearby woods, Nelly meets and befriends a little girl named Marion almost her age. When Marion invites Nelly to her house and Nelly visits it, she realizes that Marion is actually her mother and her house is exactly the same as her grandmother’s house.
Nelly visits Marion’s house multiple times and plays board games, prepares pancakes, and acts in an American Crime Drama with her. Nelly comes to know that Marion needs surgery so that she does not suffer like her grandmother in the future. Nelly reveals to Marion that she is actually her mother and invites Marion to her house. They eat there together and Nelly introduces Marion to her father. Nelly requests her father not to leave on that day so that she can spend the night with Marion. The next day, as Marion leaves the house for surgery, Nelly wishes her luck. When she returns to the house for the final time, she sees her mother inside the house. They embrace and call each other by their names.
Celine Sciamma portrays the loneliness and fantasies of childhood in Petite Maman. It shows how basic human emotions touch children and they weave a world full of fantasies. However, the elements of that fantastic world are directly inspired by real life. After Nelly’s grandmother’s demise, she is taken to her mother’s country house and her mother leaves the house shortly. In this traumatic situation of loss, Nelly deeply misses her grandmother and mother. When beloved ones are not present in front of their eyes, it is quite normal for children to weave their own fantasy world around their beloved ones. The real world and the dream world get merged into one as if those do not have separate existences anymore. In that dream world, generations also get merged and human beings belong to the same generation without any gap. The identity of a person remains the same as well. Through Petite Maman, filmmaker Celine Sciamma builds the same dreamworld where generations and identities get merged in the eyes of a child. Nelly dwells in that dream world where she gets to meet and befriend her mother at her age. They play, act, eat, build a tree house, and spend some quality time together. This film shows how real life including family and surroundings can impact a child’s imagination.
Celine Sciamma’s cute little film Petite Maman is a bit slow initially but the viewers have the rewards if they wait till the end. She envisioned the picture of a little girl building a tree house along with her mother of the same age, which eventually turned into this film. Claire Mathon’s magnificent cinematography captures the picturesque views of the French countryside. The uplifting and soaring electronic music of this film, which director Celine Sciamma terms “The Music of the Future”, composed by the frequent Sciamma collaborator Para One resonates with the mood and theme of the film. Josephine Sanz and Gabrielle Sanz, who are also real-life twin sisters, brilliantly play the characters of Nelly and Little Marion, which look very original and not immature. Petite Maman was nominated for the prestigious Golden Bear award at the 71st Berlin International Film Festival. It was also nominated for the Best Film Not in the English Language at the 75th BAFTA Awards.