MovieChat Forums > Petite maman (2022) Discussion > The lake and pyramid location

The lake and pyramid location


I'm a little staggered that no one before me has posted about this wonderful film, but here are some useful links about the key location from the (second half of the) film:

https://thegoodlifefrance.com/axe-majeur-an-architectural-masterpiece-near-paris/
https://www.axe-majeur.fr/menu-axe-majeur.html

Interestingly, the location is only about 1 km away from the swimming pool center that was the principal location of Sciamma's (also wonderful) first film, Waterlilies (2007). Sciamma grew up in this suburb of Paris, Cergy, and always described it in interviews as a kind of modern, anonymous, not-Bohemian-at-all, anywhere-place to come from and as a good place to escape to the big city from (perhaps a little like being from the Fernando valley in LA or from somewhere pleasant but undistinguished in New Jersey). The fact that Cergy turns out to have an enormous, high modern art development/playground within it, for me at least, cuts against Sciamma's earlier characterizations of the sort of place she's from. I wonder whether Sciamma herself is a little surprised about how she's repeatedly been drawn back to her home town/suburb even as she's become recognized as one of the world's great film directors (who could in principle shoot almost anything almost anywhere)?

But maybe this is just a good example of how blimin' wonderful and focused on 'the good life' the French can be: relatively small towns or suburbs in France often seem to have a real aesthetic sense about them, and to fiercely support an Arts institution or two (certainly much more so than similar-sized places in the English-speaking world).

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