Petite Maman (2021) or, Girl Fantasy Lullaby

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A childlike landscape painting in the shape of a heart is intermingled with the two central girl actors on this bright poster for Céline Sciamma's Petite Maman

A little girl is helping her mother out after the passing of her maternal grandmother, removing furniture and belongings from her house. The girl befriends a very similar girl in the forest by the house, and she soon discovers something very strange about the girl.

 

Petite Maman is written and directed by great French filmmaker Céline Sciamma (Water Lilies/Naissance des Pieuvres (2007)). The title translates to, 'little mum'.

It is an extremely calm, meditative and quiet film, which only uses music once towards the ending. The calmness surrounds a plot that seems to be mesmeric to some, while it was regrettably soporific to me. The characters have little concrete characteristics; they are more so kind of art movie 'universal mother', 'universal father' and 'universal daughter' in 'mythical forest house'. Mother and daughter are quietly grieving someone we haven't seen or met, SPOILER and then the daughter befriends a girl who looks like her twin, (they are played by real life siblings Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz) and who turns out, strangely, to be her own mother when she was her age.

Spellbound or lulled to a lethargic state of relaxation, many will claim the first due to Sciamma's politically correct credentials, (woman-centered lesbian art cinema.) But in the case of Petite Maman, the hype is wrong; the film is but a pretty and snoozy mind game.

Related post:

Céline Sciamma: Portrait of a Lady on Fire/Portrait de la Jeune Fille en Feu (2019) - Sciamma spoils us with picturesque period romance

 

Watch a trailer for the film here

 

Cost: 2.8 mil. €, approximately 3.18 mil. $

Box office: 1 mil. $ and counting

= Too early to say

[Petite Maman was released 2 June (France) and runs 72 minutes. Shooting took place in France. The film has been screened at numerous film festivals. It is set to release in Germany and Poland in February and March. So far the film looks to theatrically become a huge flop or even a mega-flop. Naturally its performance is heavily influenced and hindered by the China Virus pandemic. Sciamma does not have her next project announced yet. Petite Maman is certified fresh at 96 % with an 8.80/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Petite Maman?

Young Ahmed/Le Jeune Ahmed (2019) - Bold and important cinema at its best

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+ Best Belgian Movie of the Year + Best Box Office Disaster of the Year + Best Youth Movie of the Year + Most Under-appreciated Movie of the Year

The head of a boy mixed up badly by Islam, the poster for Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne's Young Ahmed

Ahmed is a young teenage boy, who has changed radically due to the influence of a local radical imam. He is now convinced that the teacher who has helped him overcome dyslexia is a heathen, and that he will serve Allah by killing her.

Young Ahmed is written and directed by Belgian master filmmaker brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (Falsch (1987)).
It follows the Dardenne modus operandi of being an observant portrayal of individuals of small means, who are in a life crisis. Like one of their past best films, The Kid with a Bike/Le Gamin au Vélo (2011), Young Ahmed is about an adolescent. The film gives real insights into the obsessive nature of radical Islam and portrays how ingrained and hard to remove a persuasion in this misdirection can be, like hardened grease on this inside of a human skull.
As the poor, deranged boy without a father, who turns on his Belgian mother and compulsively washes hands and mouth (of the world and his immediate surroundings' 'uncleanliness'), Idir Ben Addi is remarkable, and his harsh facial expressions and awkward body disconnect perfectly expresses the human handicap that religious fanaticism has made him a (dangerous) victim of. The film also has terrific performances from Myriem Akheddiou (The Benefit of the Doubt/Une Part d'Ombre (2017)) as Ahmed's patient, taxed teacher and victim, Claire Bodson (Our Children/À Perdre la Raison (2012)) as his outraged, wounded mother, and young Victoria Bluck as the beautiful girl Louise, who shows affection for Ahmed at the farm where he is attempted normalized, - but who won't follow him into the doldrums of Islam.
The Dardennes have rarely picked a more timely or bold topic for a film than here, following countless cases of radicalization and Islamic terrorism in their native Belgium and many neighboring European countries in the last decade. Young Ahmed leaves it to the audience to explain why Ahmed exactly winds up radicalized; but the clues are there: The local, assertive radical imam, the missing father and Western mother (ready to be blamed for anything by a naturally rebellious youth), and the mysterious X individual quality (or curse?) that makes one out of maybe 100 people fiercely religious while the 99 others are much less so. The film observes with elegant photography (by Benoît Dervaux (Post Partum (2013)), SPOILER how Ahmed quite deviously decides to manipulate his surroundings into thinking that he is de-radicalizing, - just so that he can attempt to murder his teacher again.
We are left to make our own conclusions based on the highly naturalistic, - and deeply terrible, - story that unfolds in the film, which is ultimately not without hope and humanism, which characterize all of the Dardenne films. I was especially appalled by the Belgian authorities' uniform willingness to accommodate Ahmed's fanatical religiousness: asking his permission before playing the radio; helping him with the time continually to please his sick praying routines etc. etc. - when these inhibitions all stemmed from the core of the very problem in the boy's troubled life: Islam. Young Ahmed should be seen widely and used in classrooms across the world.

 

Related post:

 

2019 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Watch a trailer for the film here

Cost: 6.1 mil. €, approximately 6.91 mil. $
Box office: 1.5 mil. $
= Box office disaster
[Young Ahmed premiered 20 May (Cannes Film Festival, in competition) and runs 84 minutes. 14 companies and support bodies were involved with financing and making the film. Screen Brussels' investment of 115k € in the film is listed as 1.86 % of the full budget, which therefore comes to 6.1 mil. €. The film opened #66 to a 4k $ first weekend in 2 theaters in North America, where it spread to 4 theaters but only lessened in position before getting wiped out by the corona pandemic, which has hurt its release in general. It grossed 21k $ (1.5 % of the total gross) in North America. The 3 biggest markets have been; France with 1.1 mil. $ (78.6 %), Italy with 159k $ (11.4 %) and the Netherlands with 113k $ (8 %). The film has one market announced to open in soon; Hungary on 2 July. It won the Best Director award in Cannes; it was nominated for a César award and won 2/9 Magritte award nominations (Belgium's Oscar), among other honors. The Dardenne brothers do not have an announced next film yet, and Addi also does not have any upcoming role announced yet. Young Ahmed is rotten at 58 % with a 6.68/10 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of Young Ahmed?

I, Daniel Blake (2016) - Loach belts out compassionate, angry cry for humanity

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+ Best English Movie of the Year 

 

The people that are at the center of Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake

 

I, Daniel Blake is the 26th theatrical fiction feature from English master filmmaker Ken Loach (Kes (1969)), written by Paul Laverty (The Wind that Shakes the Barley (2006)).

Daniel Blake is an aging widower and carpenter in Newcastle, England, who, following a heart attack, gets barred from going back to work by his doctor. The welfare system absurdly denies him help, while he befriends a young mother of two, newly moved to the city and in troubles of her own.

Daniel Blake begins with funny moments, which there are a few more of later in it, but they become fewer and fewer as the dire situations of Daniel and friend Katie continually change for the worse. Loach portrays these fates, which anyone with half a brain will know do exist out there, with the tender attention and quiet observation of a true compassionate friend of his fellow man. I, Daniel Blake is indignant social-realism at its best; the captivating story turns truly heartbreaking, SPOILER leading up to the film's ending, which is as angry as a clenched fist in the air from the aging Loach.

The anger is directed at a welfare system that treats its own citizens in need with suspicion and cold sanctions and blame instead of humanity, decency and help. But the problems laid bare in Daniel Blake extends beyond this system. - Through implication it also shows some of the dubious results of globalization and the Internet, as just about any modern turn is for the worse, it seems, in this Loach universe: An easier time for major companies and exploiters of humans in distress and a dissolution of the national and cultural fabrics that used to keep countrymen close and helping each other. The despairing facts are alleviated by the thing that still makes life - and the film - bearable, namely that people taken individually are the same as always, at root, with the same capacities for kindness, love and charity that they used to have.

Stand-up comedian Dave Johns (Harry Hill (1998), TV-series) is sensational as the titular character, and Hayley Squires (Blood Cells (2014)) is equally fantastic as Katie, SPOILER whose food bank scene seemed to punch a whole in my stomach. Briana Shann and Dylan McKiernan, debuting as Katie's daughter and son, are both marvelous.

I regretfully have to admit that the film lessens in impact on a second watch. The story seems to be a tall tower getting built to support Loach's stern, skeptical critique and argument, an accusation against modern Britain and the modern Western world in general, it seems. To some degree you get the gist of it early on, but the film still carries many fine qualities, although the sum of its parts seems smaller on a second watch 8 years after I enjoyed it first in a cinema.

 

Related posts:

 

Ken Loach: 2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED III]

Top 10: Best UK movies reviewed by Film Excess to date

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED II]

2016 in films - according to Film Excess [UPDATED I]

Cathy Come Home (1966, TV movie) - Loach introduces national social issue in pungent kitchen sink drama

Watch an official trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown

Box office: 14.6 mil. $ and counting

= Too early to say (but already looks like a box office success)

[I, Daniel Blake premiered May 13 (Cannes) and runs 100 minutes. Filming took place in Newcastle-upon-Tyne from October 2015 onward. The film is reportedly Loach's biggest hit in his native UK to date, where it has grossed 3.8 mil. $ to date. Its biggest market so far has been France with 6.4 mil. $. The film is set to open in Hong Kong, Israel, Norway and Japan in the coming months. It has sparked debate in  Britain especially, where Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn has embraced it and encouraged the country's Conservative PM Theresa May to watch it. The film won the Palm d'Or in Cannes, Loach's second, following The Wind that Shakes the Barley, and it is nominated for 5 BAFTAS and has won 2 British Independent Film Awards out of 7 nominations and 1 European Film Award out of 5 nominations. I, Daniel Blake is certified fresh at 92 % with a 7.8 critical average at Rotten Tomatoes.]

What do you think of I, Daniel Blake?