Maïmouna Doucouré
Mignonnes

Amy, an eleven-year-old originally from Senegal, lives with her mother, aunt, and brother in a suburb of Paris awaiting the return of her father, who, in the meantime, has become polygamous by marrying another woman.

Amy witnesses her mother's suffering and suffers herself from her father's absence and the strict rules imposed by Islamic religion and family traditions. She struggles to fit into the school environment and in relationships with her peers until she becomes friends with Angelica, a neighbor, who is part of a modern dance group made up of four girls.

This is the opening of "Mignonnes" (original title "Cuties"), an interesting and original film directed by Franco-Senegalese director Maïmouna Doucouré.

The film, distributed by Netflix, has sparked a media storm from critics who have seen in the film a sort of premature and ambiguous "sexualization of adolescents" or even an almost veiled normalization of pedophilia, to the point of launching a petition that has so far collected a good 600,000 signatures.

Nothing could be more wrong as far as I'm concerned. The message I perceived is very different, it is clear that the girls, who are trying and working hard for a modern dance contest, still know practically nothing about sex, nor are they interested yet, as is natural for girls just 11 years old. I actually felt a bitter sadness and a sense of tenderness watching these barely-more-than-children step into the world of "adults" unaware and especially defenseless, with its distortions and perversions. If anything, Mignonnes focuses on the lack of a concrete relationship between parents and children, not left to their own devices, but at the mercy of the surroundings, the external world, and its impulses.

Amy will steal her uncle's phone, and it is by browsing the web that they will choose the choreography of their dance, unconsciously inspired by decidedly provocative and suggestive dances, typical of much older go-go dancers and strippers in nightclubs. Swaying hips, lascivious poses, thrusting out their behinds, finger in mouth, sticking out tongue…

Amy, who joins the dance group already "experienced" in her own way, is in fact the most unaware and naive, and it will be her naivety combined with the pain she feels for her father about to bring home a second wife, that generates chaos.

The film is well directed and acted, with notable long takes and subjective shots inside Amy's house, and the young actresses are impressive, especially Amy, the protagonist, and Angelica, the supporting protagonist and neighbor, the only one who believes in her and really wants to be her friend. It is also interesting to discover customs and traditions of cultures, specifically Senegalese-Muslims, so different from ours. It is this great difference that creates a strong destabilization in young Amy, who lives in an archaic family environment with such rigid rules, starkly opposed to the world Amy experiences outside, at school, with her friends, and which becomes a source of ridicule from her classmates (how do you dress? You're flat! What ugly underwear!).

Will they win the dance contest? Will Amy find her place?