Film Review: A Child바카라�s Quest To Fathom Her Mother바카라�s Grief

It is no secret that films find it easy to imagine women as mothers 바카라� if not a mother, there is possible motherhood lurking as a catastrophic event (Shakun Batra바카라�s 바카라�Gehraiyaan바카라� falls into the same trap). And yet, for all this overrepresentation across different contexts and industries, motherhood has hardly been explored beyond clichés. Like all clichés, the trouble is not its subject, but how it is looked at. Recent films like Maggie Gyllenhaal바카라�s directorial debut 바카라�The Lost Daughter바카라� and Céline Sciamma 바카라�Petite Maman바카라� 바카라� both made by filmmakers experimenting with the female gaze 바카라� make this gap strikingly clear. Cinema, it seems, is beginning to get interested in exploring motherhood beyond sacrifice and trauma.

Before the French filmmaker made a splash with her 2019 masterpiece, 바카라�Portrait of a Lady on Fire,바카라� a gripping study of power and passion set in the 18th century, she caught our attention with her stylistic, coming-of-age trilogy:  바카라�Water Lilies바카라�, 바카라�Tomboy바카라�, and 바카라�Girlhood바카라�.

Sciamma바카라�s fifth feature film, 바카라�Petite Maman (Little Mama),바카라� currently streaming on MUBI, has a refreshing premise 바카라� in an attempt to understand her parent바카라�s adult sadness, eight-year-old Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) imagines her mother (Nina Meurisse) as her equal. This is an act of profound empathy, even as it is a desire for intimacy: A demonstration of love as paying attention 바카라� something that Greta Gerwig바카라�s Lady Bird (2017), another film on mothers and daughters, had also reminded us. 바카라�I am a child, I will understand,바카라� Nelly says somewhere at the beginning of the film. She does. She could have been bitter or angry at her mother바카라�s distance. Instead, she is curious. 

Parallel to Nelly바카라�s preoccupation with her mother바카라�s childhood and wanting to know everything about what she may have felt or desired, is her father바카라�s forgetfulness. Comments are made about his inability to listen; his childhood fear of his own father is only cajoled out of him by Nelly바카라�s questions and even then just whispered in one tiny moment. In her universe, there is nothing worse than not paying attention. 
Sciamma commented in an interview about the film바카라�s preoccupation with 바카라�watching little girls eat cereal바카라�. It is a lovely observation because much of the film evokes the child바카라�s world through daily acts 바카라� eating cereal, brushing teeth, boiling milk, even the gesture of drying your hair after getting soaked in the rain. Small things that make up the big business of living in the world. Nelly does these things with attention, and the camera is there to observe as she makes the world her own. The film바카라�s ability to be this minimal (it was shot during the lockdown) is moving. It is eloquent without needing the trappings of plot action. 

But perhaps the film바카라�s most moving quality is its own act of imagination and empathy 바카라�   its effort to understand (and not judge) the people who could possibly hurt us or leave us. Plotwise, Nelly바카라�s fantasy helps her say goodbye to her grandmother find reassurance about her own place in her mother바카라�s life. In the process, the film reveals what we may already know 바카라� childhood is a shared experience. We forgive our parents as much as they forgive us. Perhaps we bring them up as much as they do that for us. When Nelly meets a young girl, Marion (played by Gabrielle Sanz, Josephine바카라�s real-life twin), in the grove of autumn trees near her Grandma바카라�s mysterious house, she finds in her shades of her mother바카라�s childhood because Marion바카라�s life resembles the tales she has been told of her mother.

In contrast to the profound meditation on motherhood in 바카라�The Lost Daughter,바카라� where the children are literally shown as an interruption in the mother바카라�s life, 바카라�Petite Maman바카라� reimagines the mother-child relationship as generative. They both navigate the inherently unfair business of an adult being responsible for a dependent child, even as the adult struggles with memories of their own childhood. The child may not have invented her mother바카라�s sadness, as its dialogue says, but the child did invent the mother 바카라� she would not exist without her. What if we saw that experience as a shared burden, shared responsibility and maybe, shared joy? It is a film that Sciamma wanted to make for both adults and children, after all.

And so at the film바카라�s beginning, Nelly and Nina, daughter and mother, are already almost-equals as Nelly feeds her chips and juice on the way back from the hospital where her grandmother has died. Marion smiles at the reassurance; Nelly has her back. It is the same smile we will see again at the end of the film. They will bring each other up.

Aakshi Magazine has a PhD in film studies and works as a teacher.