At a recent virtual event for Berlinale Talents, writer-director Céline Sciamma was given a moment to close the q&a. “You can do anything,” the interviewer, Anas Sareen, encouraged, after reiterating the circumstances and isolation that the world currently lies in. Anything could be quite a few things— a joke, a surprise, or some final remarks. Céline Sciamma pauses for a moment, and smiles warmly until the camera cuts away. It isn’t necessary to be there to receive this warmth, that is embodied in her most recent film premiering at Berlinale. Though it was written long before the COVID-19 pandemic, Petite Maman is an especially welcome gift during a time with a great absence of human warmth. Filled with small human interactions that reassure in their honesty and purity and only could hurt in their inherent humanness, Petite Maman is a quiet and simple ode to the complex beauty of family.
Opening with a goodbye, Petite Maman enters the world of a family in the aftermath of loss. Eight year old Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) walks through the nursing home of her departed grandmother, pausing to say goodbye to each of her neighbors. Arriving in what was once her grandmother’s room, she joins her mother, Marion (Nina Meurisse), and they leave together. Marion is visibly and understandably shaken by the loss of her mother, holding back tears as she returns to the car with her own daughter. The bond between them is touching, Nelly, aware of her mother’s sadness, does all she can to comfort her mother from the backseat of the car, sharing a warmth that is very much welcome.
Returning to her childhood home, Marion is quickly submerged in childhood memories, especially as Nelly explores this home, a reminder of her younger self. Later that evening, Nelly crawls onto the couch with her, confessing her shared sadness to not have been able to say goodbye the way she wanted to. In reassuring her gently that there was no way to know she would die, Marion asks her to say goodbye the way she wanted to; taking her in her arms. As Marion retreats to deal with the impact of her own mother’s death on herself, leaving her family early, she unintentionally leaves Nelly alone with a similar loneliness.
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While it is something that is clearly familiar to the both, being only children, the uncertainty of Marion’s return is something that plagues Nelly. She doesn’t want to lose her, and while Marion can see Nelly reflected as herself as a child, there’s no reflection at this moment for Nelly. The intergenerational history of the home feels even clearer as Nelly explores the house, at one point resting on her grandmother’s bed.
In her explorations, Nelly finds a paddle ball tucked away with her father (Stéphane Varupenne). The scene is familiar, childhood boredom and exploration, but as the paddle ball breaks and the ball sails away, it’s an even more familiar feeling of regret as she loses a part, however tiny, of her mother’s past. Magically, this loss, as small as it may have been, is resolved by the journey Nelly takes into the woods in an attempt to find and restore the ball, and later, simply to explore. Smoothly slipping into the past, Nelly encounters a little girl building a fort, the same fort that Marion, the older, had mentioned before her disappearance.
The story unfolds between the two girls and concurrently reassures Nelly and the viewers that no matter what, Nelly’s mom hasn’t gone anywhere. Played by the actress’s twin sister, Gabrielle Sanz, the duo connect with a lived-in ease, especially after realizing who they are to each other, beyond fast friends. Their friendship is a pure illustration of the magic of childhood: instead of questioning the circumstances that brought them to each other, Nelly and Marion embrace them as their friendship evolves.
Mornings are spent making crêpes, acting scenes out in costume, finishing the fort, and eventually convincing Nelly’s father to let Nelly stay over at Marion’s house. Easygoing and understanding of the connection between the girls, he lets them. All three are aware of the temporality of their visit: it is known that Nelly will soon have to leave, Marion will have to undertake her surgery, and Nelly’s mum will come back.
Despite its temporality, or perhaps because of it, the scenes are filled with such warm interactions, culminating especially with Marion’s birthday. Nelly, who reconnects with her grandmother (Margo Abascal) via this connection in a painfully sweet manner, stands with her to sing happy birthday. They do it over twice, just because Marion wants to, and nothing matters more than the smiles contained in that room, and in their hearts. The candles may be blown out, but the warmth they brought, figuratively and otherwise, carries us forward.
The freedom that children have throughout Sciamma’s films, especially Petite Maman, is refreshing, and far from the confines of the current lockdown, personal or enforced. The societal role of a child, and even teenagers, as long as still considered minors, is based on restriction by adult society, allowing us little social power to express ourselves or pursue our lives in ways that are not approved of. It’s a time-old game; maybe the parent does have the best interest of their child in mind, but it doesn’t come out right. Petite Maman does not approach the complexity of childhood the way Water Lilies did, by removing parental figures, because it simply does not need to.
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It’s made with family and for family: for anyone who has been a child and negotiated these relationships even as they lost their childhood. There’s little negotiation for Nelly and Marion, they are free in this magical world, and while their parents clearly exist, they are not domineering forces of restriction. Equality is found between Nelly and younger Marion, and then reflected with her grown mother. Equality between parent and child, or even that emotional warmth, can become fleeting as one grows older and into their own person.
Petite Maman allows us to turn back the clock— to say our goodbyes the way we’d like to have said them, sit with our grandmothers again, crawl into bed with our mothers, stand at our father’s side as he shaves— reliving and receiving all the warmth of these connections while we still have them. Time causes these rifts, sometimes lasting, between parents and children, lessening the moments of natural familial intimacy so tenderly depicted in her film. Sciamma’s history as an openly gay director whose work consistently touches on the issues of family, coming of age, and belonging allows her a familiarity with the experiences of her audience that she remains in open dialogue with.
Other factors do too, some that the director would be familiar with as a lesbian artist who’s had the chance to meet many children, young and old, and hear their testimonies and experiences. In these isolating times, everyone is alone and adjusting, but the children and adolescents who thrived on freedom and connections outside the home are impacted most— doubly locked down by the constraints of the family, and of a pandemic. Petite Maman shows rather than tells, and in all that it shows, feels— bathed in a warm glow as it transmits with a painstaking authenticity the seemingly mundane interactions between a family, especially between mother and daughter. Her films have an uncanny ability to work with empathy, and Petite Maman is certainly one of them, if not the most wide-reaching and inherently comforting of her five features. If Petite Maman could give us anything in its 72 minutes, it seems to want to allow us to heal, to close the gaps in our hearts, and hope for a better tomorrow.
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