Petite Maman

You didn’t invent my sadness.

Have you ever thought of what it would be like to grow up at the same as your mother? Little Mom. Would it be weird? I mean, I get surreal, but knowing your mother at 8 years old, the same age as you. Suddenly, your relationship opens up many doors. Maybe doors you didn’t even know existed. Doors you thought were closed. An invitation back into a world that we once lived. To crawl back into bed with your mother, pulling the sheets over you, to playing paddleball in your backyard, losing the ball because the elastic snaps, to helping your father shave and seeing him for the first time without a beard. These are all feelings, and memories of a life once lived.

Celine Sciamma does more in 1 hour and 17 minutes than most modern films today. A brisk, poignant, autumn love letter to mothers, motherhood and the endless days of childhood. A fairytale, almost reminiscent of Miyazaki; Sciamma envelops a subtle, quiet film with grace and humility, almost a total opposite of her emotional crescendo of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Petite takes your hand and walks with you through nostalgia and memories of the past.

While I preferred the emotional gut punch of Sciamma’s previous venture, it’s hard to forget the emotions stirred up in the simplicity of childhood.

3 out of 5.