PETITE MAMAN

France, 2021, 73 minutes, Colour.

Josephine Sanz, Gabrielle Sanz, Nina Meurisse, Stephane Vaurupenne.

Directed by Celine Sciamma.

French writer-director, Celine Sciamma, as often focused on children in her films, Tomboy, Girlhood. She is also noted for dramas developing relationships between women, Portrait of a Woman on Fire.

This drama, something of a miniature running at 72 minutes, is about relationships and about childhood. It is a blend of realism and imagination and fantasy.

We are introduced to the little girl, Nelly, doing crosswords with residents of an aged care home where her grandmother has just died. She and her parents go to the grandmother’s home to pack things have everything in order. Her mother is quite distraught, loving nearly but, as her father informs her in the morning, her upset mother has gone. She has talked to her mother about her mother’s childhood days, in the same place, and building a hut in the woods. She is rather upset that her father does not remember any of these stories.

When Nelly goes out into the woods, she sees a young girl about her age, gathering branches to build a treehouse. Nelly helps, visits the young girl, Marion (her mother’s name) at her house and meets her mother. The two become friends, visits, meals, helping with the hut, bringing flowers and branches. Nelly tells her father about her friend.

But, with the names, with the hut, with the exchanges in the conversations, we realise that Marion is Nelly’s mother, back in that time, and nearly as communicating with her, understanding her, loving her.

So, while the film is something of an intimate look at a little girl and her relationship with her parents, takes on something of a childish mystical touch, the audience watching the two children (played by twins, Josephine and Gabriel Sanz, senses the effect on each character, the daughter understanding her mother, the mother and her love for her daughter.

Hence the title, the little mother, Marion and her mothering Nelly.

1. Title? The mother? Her mother dying? The little Marion, and her mother?
2. The setting, French provincial life, the home for the Aged, the grandmother’s home, Marion’s home, the treehouse? The minimal musical score?
3. The setting, nearly saying goodbye to all the women in the home, doing the crossword puzzle? Memories of her grandmother? The van with the grandmothers possessions? In the car with her mother? Going to her grandmother’s home?
4. Nelly, aged eight, her devotion to her grandmother, a love for her mother, the packing, cleaning, the bedroom, sharing it with her mother, on the couch, her mother’s disappearance? The meals, her father? Genial man, fixing everything, packing up? His not remembering the stories from the past? The game with the return ball, it’s breaking?
5. Nelly, in the woods, discovering the treehouse, finding Marion, helping carries a log, building the house? Memories of her mother and the house?
6. Transitions in time, Marion, preparing for the operation, her relationship with her mother, the walking stick? Marion and the name? The bond between the two girls, going to the house, nearly exploring the rooms? Going to visit Marian, they’re playing together, the boardgames? Building the house?
7. The time transitions, Nelly calling Marion her mother, the talk about mothers and daughters, the role play, the reality, the timeshift?
8. Nelly returning home, the conversations with her father, wanting to stay the night with Marion? The night, the crossword and Marion’s mother, farewelling her her way to the hospital after packing?
9. Nelly, the story of the treehouse, her bringing the autumn branches and their decorating the house, cutting the string to tie branches together?
10. Nelly returning home, her mother on the floor, sad, their being together? The future?