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A joy from the first frame to the last

Petite Maman (PG, 72 mins) Directed by Celine Sciamma Reviewed by Graeme Tuckett ★★★★★

In French with English subtitles

Nelly is 8 years old. She is with her mum and dad as they travel to a house that was once Nelly’s mother’s childhood home.

Nelly’s grandmother has died and the family have come to spend the week clearing out the last corners of her life, emptying the cupboards and preparing the house to be sold.

Nelly is a bright and inquisitive girl. She asks her mum all sorts of questions about her years growing up in this house, of what happened and of what people were like, ‘‘when they were young’’.

After a few days, Nelly meets another girl while out exploring in the woods near the house. Her name is Marion – the same as Nelly’s mother. And although they might not seem to even notice it at first, the two girls appear to be identical twins.

Celine Sciamma’s Petite Maman is a joy from first frame to last. Over that lean 72 minutes, the film unfolds as a deft and compassionate meditation on time, parenthood, mortality and – especially – on those porous spaces and events when childhood seems to fold in on itself and become something that will indelibly mark itself on the adult.

And yet, Petite Maman is not just about memory and childhood.

This is also a film that dabbles in time-travel and parallel universes. It just does it in such a warmly observational and matterof-fact way, you’ll barely notice that

Petite Maman has at least one foot in the world of Arrival, Donnie Darko and The Child In Time.

Sciamma is best known for

Portrait of a Lady on Fire. But she made her bones with the trio Water-Lillies, Girlhood and Tomboy – all acute, honest, small-canvas portraits of girls and young women moving from childhood and into adolescence and adulthood.

Petite Maman plays like a kindhearted and insightful prequel to those films. In the truest meaning of the word, this is a wonderful film – one of the year’s very best.

Petite Maman is now screening in select cinemas.

Entertainment

en-nz

2021-11-27T08:00:00.0000000Z

2021-11-27T08:00:00.0000000Z

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