Mignonnes
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Mignonnes |
| Country of production | France |
| original language | French |
| Publishing year | 2020 |
| length | 95 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Maïmouna Doucouré |
| script | Maïmouna Doucouré |
| production | Sylvain De Zangroniz |
| music | Nicolas Nocchi |
| camera | Yann Maritaud |
| cut | Stéphane Mazalaigue , Mathilde Van de Moortel |
| occupation | |
| |
Mignonnes (international English-language title Cuties for "The Sweet") is a film of Maïmouna Doucouré who on January 23, 2020 at the Sundance Film Festival made its debut and came into the French cinema on 19 August 2020th In the autobiographically inspired film, 11-year-old Amy from Senegal joins a group of hypersexualized girls in Paris and prepares with them for a dance competition. Here she gets into a conflict between the two cultures.
action
Eleven year old Amy Diop has just moved to Paris from Senegal with her mother Mariam, her younger brother Ismaël and another little brother. Amy doesn't know when the father is coming, and her mother only gives her vague answers when she asks about him.
At her new school, she quickly becomes aware of a group of other eleven year old girls strutting commonly short skirts and midriff tops and Cuties call. In the girls' bathroom, they talk about sex and watch porn, but actually they know very little about it. The girls Angelica, Coumba, Jess and Yasmine love to dance and are preparing to take part in a dance competition. Her life plan seems to be in complete contradiction to the teachings Amy hears about in the Muslim prayer meetings she and her mother attend regularly, where women are encouraged to obey their husbands. Amy doesn't want to cause her mother any grief, especially because she knows that her father wants to take a second wife. She should also move into the shared apartment in Paris and live with Amy's father in the lavishly furnished master bedroom that her mother keeps under lock and key. Even if Mariam sees it as a failure that she is not enough for her husband, she is pressured by her sister and agrees to host the wedding.
The spirited Angelica lives in the apartment above them. Amy often meets her in the laundry room, where she watches them dance unnoticed. She secretly watches videos of the cuties on a smartphone that she stole from her cousin to learn their choreography and movements. She is fascinated by the social media world. Amy and Angelica become friends and tell each other their worries and wishes. Soon Amy is accepted into the group by the other girls and is spending more and more time with her new friends. When Yasmine is kicked out of the group after an argument, Amy takes her place and can even teach the cuties a few new moves. Amy will soon be going to school in short clothes and cropped up. She quickly gets into a fight with another girl who is filming her classmates. This is how Amy's mother learns of her daughter's change. She finds out that Amy went on a shopping spree with her friends and stole her money because of it. She collapses. When her father's wedding is approaching, Amy has to help with the preparations in the kitchen. Therefore she comes too late to audition the group, which is invited to the final anyway.
When her cousin sees that Amy has stolen his smartphone, she strips in front of him so she can keep it. The cousin reacts angry and ashamed. Before she gives him back the cell phone, Amy quickly photographs her shame and posts the photo. Her friends do not understand this, exclude Amy and accept Yasmine again. Angelica still tries to remain her friend.
At Amy's home, preparations for the arrival of the father and his second wife from Senegal are in full swing. The wedding should take place on the same day as the final dancing. Amy runs away from home, pushes Yasmine into the water without further ado and takes her place in the group. While the men in the audience are impressed by the frivolous performance of the girls, there is indignation among the women. Suddenly, however, Amy stormed off the stage crying and ran home. Her mother protects her from her aunt and tells her that she doesn't have to come to the wedding if she doesn't want to.
production
Directed by the Franco-Senegalese Maïmouna Doucouré , who also wrote the script. It is Doucouré's debut film. Doucouré studied biology before making her award-winning short film Maman (s) . In 2019 she received the Academy Gold Fellowship for Women from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . The main character in the film is the director's alter ego , who also moved between two cultures.
The film was first shown on January 23, 2020 at the Sundance Film Festival . In the run-up to the festival, Netflix secured the rights to the film. As part of the Berlin International Film Festival , the film was shown in the Generation Kplus section from February 22, 2020. In France, it opened in cinemas on August 19, 2020. It should be available on Netflix from September 9, 2020.
reception
Reviews
The film has been rated positively in 81 percent of all Rotten Tomatoes reviews and received an average rating of 7 out of a possible 10 points.
After Mignonnes was shown at the Sundance Festival, it received largely benevolent reviews. Marked The Hollywood Reporter the film as "captivating, but structurally shaky". Screen Daily found that the sight of working prepubescent girls was deliberately used to confront viewers with an overly sexualizing culture. Le Monde points out that the filmmaker avoids evaluating the dance's decidedly sexual orientation. During the performance of the “Mignonnes”, she only shows the faces of the audience, on which a multitude of reactions can be read.
Teresa Vena from the online film magazine Cineuropa writes that Maïmouna Doucouré's multi-faceted coming-of-age film shows what self-image young girls in our society have, how their aesthetic sense is shaped by social media , advertising and everyday pornography , and how they get by Expressing clothes, makeup and rough language. This is propagated by the entertainment industry , which tends to reduce everything to stereotypes . Doucouré contrasts a wrongly progressive image of women with a wrongly conservative vision. You avoid demonization and simple solutions in an intelligent way and instead formulate a plea for mutual understanding. Despite the gravity of the subject, the film manages to maintain calm and childlike ease. Warm and saturated colors gave the tightly cut film a touch of magic. Fathia Youssouf in the leading role finds the perfect balance between tenderness and strength, and her charisma is the greatest strength of the film.
Shitstorm and reactions
In August 2020, the streaming provider Netflix came under fire after it had published its own trailer and poster for the film. The underage actresses are shown in sexualized poses. The advertising material thus contradicts the original French film poster, on which the girls are portrayed in a neutral context. In the following Shitstorm , the film was requested to be removed from the Netflix program. In addition, Mignonnes was rated extremely poorly on various Internet platforms in the course of a so-called review bombing . Netflix then withdrew the original promotional photo and apologized for the images that did not portray the film adequately. Pictures and description have now been changed.
In the course of the shitstorm, several people spoke up who defended the film against criticism. Tessa Thompson said on her Twitter account that Mignonnes had moved her deeply at the Sundance premiere and was beautiful. Although she can understand the current discussion, she does not show the film she is watching, which is why she is disappointed with the marketing, as this is responsible for the criticism. Kate Erbland, who rated the film positively for IndieWire , called the poster very bad because it positively promotes the insidious hypersexualization of young girls the film is about. In contrast, the film is good and not nauseating.
According to Joanna Williams of The Spectator , Mignonnes offers a rare glimpse into the reality of the working class and ethnically diverse youth of some girls. But this is something that many prefer to remain hidden and must give way to the glorious simplicity and wonderful innocence of a childhood presented in a clothing catalog. In Mignonnes, with their sexually provocative dresses and dances, the girls aimed to attract the attention of adults as well as to escape boredom, but ultimately they would be happy. In her film, director Doucouré asks complex questions about the social sexualization of young girls, the reactions of those around them and the role of the social status of those affected. However, many are unwilling to deal with this complexity, as it is easier to judge the messenger, close your eyes and stick your fingers in your ears than to dwell in ambiguity. The reaction to Netflix marketing shows that the phenomenon of cancel culture is not only reserved for the social left.
In an essay on the film website In Their Own League , Caz Armstrong wrote that the film treats the sexualization of the protagonists in a way that is very uncomfortable for the audience and sometimes overshoots the mark. However, this is not celebrated or advertised in the plot, and although sexualization is a key issue, it is by no means the only important part of the complex film. Netflix marketing thus emphasizes the most controversial aspect of the film in an inappropriate way by expanding it into disgusting proportions. The streaming service does exactly what Docouré analyzes in her film, namely the sexual exploitation of young girls, not to start intelligent discussions on the topic, but as clickbaiting . Mignonnes walks a fine line, which does not always succeed, but the film has an incredibly noble goal, which he approaches with careful observation and nuance. Netflix betrayed Doucouré for clicks and sabotaged the discourse about the childhood of young girls.
Awards
Berlin International Film Festival 2020
- Nomination for best film in the Generation Kplus section
- Directing Award: World Cinema Dramatic for director Maïmouna Doucouré
Web links
- Mignonnes in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Cuties in the program of the Sundance Film Festival (English)
- Mignonnes in the program of the Berlin Film Festival
Individual evidence
- ↑ Cuties. In: cineuropa.org. Retrieved February 4, 2020.
- ↑ Generation Kplus program. In: berlinale.de
- ↑ a b https://www.cineuropa.org/en/newsdetail/384680
- ↑ Anna Menta: Netflix's 'Cuties' is a Heartbreaking Coming-of-Age Film, Both Modern and Timeless. In: decider.com, January 23, 2020.
- ↑ Martin Dale: French Producer Zangro on Sundance Entry 'Cuties,' and Upcoming Project. In: Variety, January 14, 2020.
- ↑ https://www.newsbreak.com/news/0NqHDA72/netflix-buys-world-rights-to-maimouna-doucours-sundance-player-cuties
- ↑ Generation: Should I Stay or Should I Go - Young people on the move. In: berlinale.de. December 17, 2019, accessed February 8, 2020 .
- ↑ a b Netflix s'excuse et supprime une affiche Genealogie pour “Mignonnes”. Retrieved August 22, 2020 (French).
- ↑ Cuties. In: Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved February 4, 2020.
- ↑ Cuties: Netflix apologises for promotional poster after controversy. In: BBC. August 20, 2020, accessed on August 22, 2020 .
- ↑ Le Point.fr: Netflix fait polémique avec la promotion américaine du film «Mignonnes». August 21, 2020, accessed on August 22, 2020 (French).
- ↑ Axel Weidemann: Sexualization of underage girls? In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. August 21, 2020, accessed on August 22, 2020 .
- ↑ Zack Sharf: Tessa Thompson and More Defend 'Cuties,' Criticize Netflix's marketing for Creating Outrage. In: IndieWire . August 21, 2020, accessed on August 26, 2020 .
- ↑ Joanna Williams: In defense of Netflix's 'Cuties'. In: The Spectator . August 21, 2020, accessed on August 26, 2020 .
- ^ Caz Armstrong: "Cuties" and Netflix's Betrayal of Maïmouna Doucouré. In: In Their Own League. August 21, 2020, accessed on August 26, 2020 .
- ↑ https://deadline.com/2020/02/sundance-film-festival-awards-2020-winners-1202848900/