"Petite Maman" (2021)

This is a charming French film that begins sadly. Marion goes with her husband, and daughter Nelly to clear out the house of her mother, who has just died. It all proves a bit too much for Marion, who returns home to leave her husband to the task at hand. Nelly goes wandering in the nearby woods and meets a little girl her own age. Going back to the other girl's house she realises it is her grandmother's house, but in the past, and that her new friend is her mother when she was a child. Because she is a small child she is able to roll with this far better than an adult would.

In the hands of an American director I suspect Petite Maman would be a terrible confection of twee sludge, but thanks to Céline Schiamma's understated direction and subtle but impressive performances by twins Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz as the two girls it remains something gentle and quietly poignant. I recommend this one highly. There is one odd musical bit. Eventually Nelly explains to little Marion what is going on. Then at one point she is listening to music on headphones and little Marion says "is that the music of the future?" and then asks to hear it. We then get this sudden burst of euphoric electronic music, which might be the only music heard in the entire film (Schiamma does not do soundtracks), which continues playing while the two girls paddle off in a little boat around some weird concrete structure in a lake. For the first time it becomes possible that the bit with little Marion is actually our present and Nelly is living in the future.

As a timeslip fantasy, Pettie Maman was eligible for this year's Hugo Awards. I nominated it in the Best Dramatic Presentation (Short Form) category, but due to biased political voting it failed to make it onto the list of finalists.

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Nelly & Marion (Guardian: "The 50 best films of 2021 in the UK, No 3: Petite Maman")