petite maman

After the ravishing Portrait of a Lady on Fire, Céline Sciamma hones in on an equally intimate, but less visually flashy tale in the quiet and exquisite Petite Maman. It harkens back to Sciamma's excellent Tomboy, which carefully and sensitively examined the perspective of a child. Petite Maman is almost like a fable, a film that could be played in any year as allegorical to one's own life, its power perhaps residing in how one is able to respond to its quaintness. 

After the death of her mother, a young woman (referred in the credits as simply La mère, played by Nina Meurisse) cleans out her childhood home with her partner (Le père, played by Stéphane Varupenne) with her loving, inquisitive daughter Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) in tow. Curious about her mother's childhood, and grieving quietly for her grandmother, Nelly goes to the woods where her mother used to play. There she falls into a parallel existence, meeting Marion (Gabrielle Sanz) who ends up being an eight-year old version of Nelly's own mother. One can imagine the magical realism of films like The Enchanted Cottage or even Back to the Future. Robert Zemeckis' film is a flashy, comical sci-fi quest into wistfully altering the fate of a white middle-class America family; the movie is soaked with wall-to-wall music and consumerism of the 1950s and the 1980s. 

Sciamma's film does not particularly have strong markers of any particular era. Even a hidden patch of "dated" wallpaper could be from the 70s, 80s, or 90s or even an attempt at a sort of vintage chic in the 2000s. The film also thrives not on music or bombast, but on the minutiae of tiny sounds of interactions of things with the body--eating crunchy snacks, drinking milk out of chocolate cereal, spreading shaving cream on the face with a brush, the rustling of sheets on a couch. These smacks and wisps of sounds pepper the film with a seemingly acute purpose of portraying closeness--almost ghostliness--the traces of sounds we leave behind when we interact with the physical world. When music suddenly hits the film, it does so broadly, with a child's perspective of an island pyramid given a particularly dreamy heightened power. The music is almost like a simultaneously satisfying and queasy sugar rush after a long bout of going without carbs. Sciamma's 72-minute film often feels egg shell-fragile, as if it's constantly tip-toeing around in quietness--resisting pushing the viewer's emotions in any particular direction. It's also gently playful and assured. An inside-out sweater made right-side-out and an edit of "transporting to tomorrow" may symbolize the "passing over" to a new plane; shaven faces and put-upon costumes suggest the trickeries of age and identity. Claire Mathon, whose cinematography recently showed prowess with the fuzzed memories of the past in Spencer--particularly when Diana physically and psychologically crawled into the ruins of her childhood home--lenses Petite Maman deftly. The atmosphere of hushed houses at night (shadows playing on the floor like a "black panther") and in the afternoon light, and the damp, leafy autumnal forest where Nelly and Marion play are all striking visual worlds to linger in. ***   

-Jeffery Berg

portrait of a lady on fire

I had to go back and read my 2011 review of Tomboy, before writing this review of director Céline Sciamma's deceptively uncomplicated and breathtakingly beautiful new film Portrait of a Lady on Fire. In Tomboy, Sciamma was able to express deep naturalism and a flair for coming-of-age that felt palpable without falling into familiar tropes. She returns with another singular vision here, a ravishing little tale set around 1770 of an artist, Marianne (Noémie Merlant), commissioned to paint a portrait of a reluctant aristocratic countess Héloïse (Adèle Haenel) who is soon to be married off. Immediately enamored with one another without expressing it through words, the two develop romantic feelings. On daily walks together by sea, Marianne observes Héloïse, trying to absorb her every gesture and expression. Sciamma's slow pacing, deliberate pausing, which can be cloying in most films, really works here in establishing the halting, building passion between the two.

As the story simmers, it's the tactile nature of the movie's aural and visual world which add to its atmosphere. There are distinctive sounds throughout--waves, a fire crackling, brushstrokes and charcoal marks against canvas. As this is a tale told through memory, these sounds indicate the powerful way sound can conjure remembrance. The photography by Claire Mathon (who also shot another compelling-looking pic from this year--Atlantics) institutes a clean, piercing vision. We stay close to Marianne's point-of-view--her eyes on Héloïse, from her back turned in the beginning to a striking profile finale shot. The look of the film is helped in part by the barren sets, seaside landscapes and the two leads, standing out in their exquisite costuming (by Dorothée Guiraud). The paintings in the film were done by Hélène Delmaire. It's really gorgeous work to behold. Just seeing the finishing touches on a green dress were quietly thrilling. ****

-Jeffery Berg

tomboy

As someone who endured adolescent gender struggles, I admired the way director Céline Sciamma (Water Lilies) handles the material in Tomboy, a sweetly observed coming-of-age tale. 10-year old Laure (Zoé Héran) moves with her father, young sister, and expecting mother to a new apartment.  Laure pretends to be a boy named Mikael while out playing with peers and  attracting the affection of a young neighbor neighbor, Lisa (Jeanne Disson).

The film is very tender and not as tragic as cinematic stories of this nature usually are.  It's also deceptively simple.  It must have been no easy task to direct these young actors as well as Sciamma does. Malonn Lévana endearingly plays Laure's younger sister and delivers some of the film's funniest moments.  Despite her off-the-cuff silliness, there is something inherently wise in her character's defense of Laure / Mikael and the way, as an actor, she's able to emotionally communicate it.  Héran's portrayal is very vivid, almost uncomfortably so.  Sciamma delicately shows the interaction of children as brilliantly naturalistic as François Truffaut did in Small Change and the ways in which the worlds that children create somewhat mirror the competitiveness, anxiety and insecurities of adults.  Once Laure's mother interrupts Laure's fantasy of being Mikael, the film moves into uneasy territory. The freedom Laure felt (expressed in the resplendent opening shot) is abruptly crushed.  It gets better, in a way, yes, but in the adult world, things also get more complicated. ***1/2

-Jeffery Berg