As Nelly (Joséphine Sanz) sleeps securely in her mother’s arms, a bright circle of light skittishly bounces across the door, its glow illuminating the murky shape of a key. Nelly and Marion (Gabrielle Sanz) stand side by side, their backs to the camera, their fort illuminated by the hazy gold light filtering through autumn leaves. Nelly and her mother flick through old notebooks illuminated by the warm flush of a bedside lamp.

Petite Maman is the story of Nelly and her mother Marion following the death of Marion’s own mother. Amid mourning, Nelly encounters and befriends the younger version of Marion. Despite being a film about grief and inheritance, it is blanketed in a warmth that seeps through the screen. Most of this is because of Petite Maman’s endearing, childlike understanding of light; it seeps into bare rooms, scatters itself across pale walls, animates dark corners with fuzzy figures; it beckons Nelly to step outside, to engage with it honestly, playfully. Untangling the intimate relationship between childhood and light also lends the film an inbuilt dramatic tension. Days are built to end, and the director, Céline Sciamma, embraces this, meticulously following the cyclical pattern of day to night, encouraging moments to stretch only as far as the setting sun will allow.

Petite Maman

Courtesy of: MUBI

In this sense, light is central to furthering the story, but it is also at its centre, often drawing characters to the heart of the scene. Jewellery is adorned and ties are askew as the two girls play dress-up. The shutters are drawn, and the room becomes dark, save for the lamp positioned between them. The next day, Nelly finishes decorating their wooden fort with colourful branches, red and orange leaves wedged between fallen wood. They stand back observing what looks like a tent on fire, a static flame. Light isn’t just a way for them to see each other; it is also the reason they are brought together, looking at the same thing in the first place.

When asked about the experience of lighting this film, cinematographer Claire Mathon likened it to writing a musical score, “with very precise conductorship sequence-by-sequence.” Such a rhythmic, instinctual understanding of light is apparent in the way Nelly and Marion are framed, with each scene showcasing a changing dynamic that is marked by the almost imperceptible shift of the sun. A particularly neat act of editing features a shot of the two girls, side by side on a bed coated in sunlight before cutting to Nelly alone, sat in the same position, the square of setting sun dancing above her head. Gradually, the two are becoming accustomed to a life together: innocuous moments weaving two people closer, revealing that their unspoken ways of being align so completely. Petite Maman uses light to measure the film’s slow, easy heartbeat.

Petite Maman

Courtesy of: MUBI

Céline Sciamma’s films are “always about a few days out of the world.” Light and time must work in tandem to concoct a love story that feels earned in the cocoon of these “few days”. Together, Nelly and Marion learn how to bend time, how to stretch minutes into hours, how to while away moments. They do this by playing, by testing the limits of the world, prodding and poking, running, and sliding over wet leaves. Upon their first meeting, Marion mixes some chocolate milk for Nelly. During their final sleepover, they make pancakes; ingredients splash onto the tabletop and giggles drown out the rhythmic turning of the wooden spoon. Is there any better way to teach children about time than by showing them how to cook? With food, time is never lost – it is chopped and shredded and bound, it is made tangible, edible, real. Slowly, these two are showing one another how to shoulder the constraints of time, to move through it with a shared grace.

Petite Maman

Courtesy of: MUBI

Hidden in the folds of time is the darker, more amorphous idea of growing up. Petite Maman digs around and settles on the most potent question implicit to this idea: how do you live with the decisions you make? More importantly, how do you live with the decisions made for you? By the people you love? It is a question left to linger in the comforting quiet that blankets this film. No answer is found, but there is no need to settle on one yet. After all, Marion is a mother and even she had to escape for a few days to think it over, coming back with nothing but a hug and an apology. “Sorry,” the grown-up Marion offers, cross-legged in the empty living room. “For what?” Nelly replies, wisely.

For now, Nelly knows everything she needs to know. Actions have consequences, like the refreshing day will be followed by the flatness of night; as light necessarily produces long, sprawling shadows. Consequences only grow messier, less predictable the older you get, but she has been armed with the promise that, whatever may happen, “you didn’t invent my sadness.”

So, to recap, here’s our Top 20 for 2021

#20 – After Love
#19 – Undine
#18 – No Time To Die
#17 – Ninjababy
#16 – The French Dispatch
#15 – Shiva Baby
#14 – Dune
#13 – Drive My Car
#12 – Annette
#11 – Minari
#10 – Sound of Metal
#9 – Spencer
#8 – First Cow
#7 – C’mon C’mon
#6 – Nomadland
#5 – The Power of the Dog
#4 – Another Round
#3 – Limbo
#2 – The Green Knight
#1 – Petite Maman

Wishing you all a happy and healthy 2022! See you at the movies.