TIFF Review: Céline Sciamma’s ‘Petite Maman’

Abe is covering a few selections from the Toronto International Film Festival remotely.  

By Abe Friedtanzer 

Expectations play a big part in the experience of watching any movie. One of the major factors I consider when selecting what I’m going to see at a film festival is whether I’ve seen (and liked) the director’s previous work. I was fully intrigued by the concept of revisiting the mind of Céline Sciamma, whose last feature was Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which I think may be one of the few films that everyone at Team Experience can agree that we loved. Well, let’s start by clarifying that her follow-up, Petite Maman, couldn’t be any more different…

Young sisters Joséphine Sanz and Gabrielle Sanz play eight-year-old girls, Nelly and Marion, respectively, who meet while they are each facing difficult transitions. Nelly is mourning her grandmother at the home where her mother grew up, while Marion is about to have surgery to give her the best chance of not developing her own mother’s hereditary physical condition. They look nearly identical and similarly share emotional sentiments that help to establish a quick and extremely close friendship.

The subject matter here has nothing to do with sexuality and romance, which was a big part of Sciamma’s last film. I haven’t personally seen any of her earlier work that dealt with younger characters, but this film is perfectly wholesome and family-friendly in its depiction of its children who may be wise beyond their years yet not in terms of anything controversial. The exploration of friendship is a compelling one, showing how they are able to build such a rapport by saying little and merely sharing time and space together.

The pacing is similar to that in Portrait of a Lady on Fire, which does make it a mildly tedious watch, even with a very brief seventy-minute runtime. The positive is that, as it goes on, the film becomes more enticing and endearing, leading to a powerful and uplifting finish. These two actresses are remarkable in their film debuts, inviting audiences to journey back into memory and to the formative moments in a person’s life whose details may eventually become vaguer and near-impossible to recall but can never fully be forgotten. Just be prepared for something that doesn’t feel at all like Sciamma’s last film. B

Petite Maman is screening in the Special Presentations section at TIFF 2021.

Comments

[thevoid99]

I do want to see this as Portrait of a Lady on Fire was this immense discovery this past summer that I just fell in love with and having seen this and Girlhood. I'm eager to see this knowing it's a totally different animal from Portrait but it feels like a film Sciamma wants to make to break away from expectations which is what an artist should always do.