From sisterhood to matrophobia: reading the family romance in the films of Céline Sciamma

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores the significance of sister–sister relations in Céline Sciamma’s films. It explains how Sciamma is continuing an important feminist film tradition in attending to the complex negotiation from the intimacy of the family home to the realm of the social for girls, and how sisterly relations are conducted between the domestic and the external world. Drawing on work by Eva Rueschmann, Adrienne Rich, Kathleen Rowe Karlyn and Juliet Mitchell, it creates a framework that considers how Sciamma’s sisters function as both mothers and peers – paying particular attention to birth order means that Sciamma can show the violence and difficulties that subtend the tenderness and complicity of the sisterly relation. The article concludes that Sciamma’s films create idylls of equality that are shattered by the decision the older sister must take to protect herself from patriarchy and thus sacrifice her younger sister to its effects.