Film Mafia

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Petite Maman

May 5, 2022by CJLeave a Comment on Petite Maman

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Céline Sciamma’s follow-up to Portrait of a Lady on Fire, is, if anything, even better, and the best film I’ve seen at the cinema thus far in 2022. It is a perfect, gentle jewel, precise, concise (72 minutes!), warm, heartfelt, witty, moving and ultimately profound.

At a crucial point in her young life, an eight-year old girl, Nelly, meets and befriends another eight-year-old girl, Marion. Their brief relationship is rendered with astonishing authenticity, reflecting a deeply astute understanding of the inner life of children and young girls in particular.

Sciamma gets extraordinary naturalistic performances from young sisters Joséphine and Gabrielle Sanz, neither of whom have any other screen credits. Joséphine, as Nelly, portrays a world of curiosity, understanding and thought that, as the father of an eight-year old girl, I recognised implicitly. Every frame of her performance rings true, as though she is living the part. At one point her father shaves his beard, implying that perhaps the film was shot in sequence, which would make perfect sense. You absolutely and fundamentally go on Nelly’s small-but-massive journey with her, days that will change not so much her life as her understanding of it.

Sciamma’s direction is sublime and her writing heartfelt. In its modest ambition, Petite Maman achieves a kind of delicate monumentality. Do not miss it. I can’t wait to show it to my own daughter, who will recognise its integrity more than I ever can.

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Saint Maud

March 12, 2021by CJLeave a Comment on Saint Maud

Opens In Australian Cinemas Thursday 18 March.

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There are many parallels between Saint Maud and Jennifer Kent’s The Babadook (2014). Both are supremely assured, concise and precise debut features featuring severely traumatised female protagonists whose tenuous grip on reality is made manifest for the viewer, so that the line between thriller (a suspense film set in the real world) and horror (a suspense film with supernatural elements) is blurred. Both can be read as entirely literal depictions of mental illness. Both are also scary AF.

Maud (Morfydd Clark, in one of the performances of the year thus far) is a young palliative care nurse-for-hire in a British seaside town that has seen better days. Having been through a traumatic event, she has turned – heavily – to God, and when she is assigned to care for a semi-famous choreographer (Jennifer Ehle) with stage four lymphoma, she sees it as an opportunity to redeem herself by saving a soul. Things don’t go according to plan.

To say more would be to spoil; if you’re into sophisticated horror that’s about the human condition rather than jump-scares (although there are a couple of wicked ones here), this is for you. It’s very well directed, the strangely melancholic milieu is rich, and the script is bold, taking on religious belief as a kind of self-destructive mania. Writer/director Rose Glass’ career is, effectively, made: this film is attention-grabbing for all the right reasons.

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The Don

CJ Johnson is the host of the MOVIELAND podcast (click on CJ's face above to listen and subscribe!) He broadcasts film reviews Tuesday nights on THE NIGHTLIFE on the Australian Broadcasting Network (ABC). He is the president of the Film Critics Circle of Australia.

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