Petit Mal (2022) – An Imperfect Triangular Balance, the Multidimensional Jealousy Proven by Absence, and the Aesthetics of the Ending

We often seek to draw a perfect circle in our relationships with others, yet love constantly pricks us in unexpected places, much like the sharp corners of a triangle. Utilizing the framework of polyamory to examine the most intimate, vulnerable aspects of human deficiency and possessiveness, this film questions how easily the stability of a relationship can dissolve into a mirage.

🌿 Moments When This Film Penetrates Deeply

• It resonates with those who have experienced a subtle sense of alienation and emotional isolation within a relationship they believed to be complete.
• It evokes deep empathy when one wishes to confront the contradiction of believing that the scale and form of love cannot be quantified, while simultaneously craving exclusive rights of one’s own.
• This film must be read to the end because it visually demonstrates how the absence of another shakes one’s own existence, mapping out the subsequent process of maturity reached through that instability, thereby redrawing the topography of relationships.

🎞 Notes Before Watching

This work focuses less on the physical intimacy of three women and more on their emotional connection and the subtle psychological power dynamics that emerge between them. Avoiding provocative depictions or visual exposure, this highly emotion-driven queer drama unfolds solely through the characters’ gazes, the atmosphere, and the gaps within their language.

🎬 Film Information

• Title: Petit Mal (2022)
• Director: Ruth Caudeli
• Screenplay: Ruth Caudeli
• Country: Colombia
• Genre: Drama / Romance / LGBTQIA+
• Runtime: 1 hour 29 minutes
• Platform: Netflix
• Cast: Ruth Caudeli (as Laia), Silvia Varón (as Martina), Ana María Otálora (as Anto)

📖 Petit Mal, the Process of a Three-Person Universe Shrinking into the Isolation of Two [No Spoilers]

In a remote, beautiful house made of glass and wood in rural Colombia, three women—Anto, Marti, and Laia—share a blissful daily life in a polyamorous relationship. Sharing playful intimacy alongside their dogs, they appear to have built an ideal community that transcends possessiveness. However, when Laia, who serves as the anchor and cohesive force of the relationship, leaves home for a long-term project abroad, their once-solid universe shrinks into a space inhabited by only two.

Laia’s absence brings an unfamiliar sense of isolation to the remaining Marti and Anto, prompting them to rely on each other and explore a new emotional temperature. In the process of adapting to a relationship of two rather than three, unexpected waves of change occur within their daily lives and psychology.

🎨 From the Isolation of Black-and-White to Triangulated Inversion: An In-Depth Analysis of Petit Mal

🖤 The Monochromatic Space and Emotional Curve Brought by Absence

Following Laia’s departure, the film transitions to black-and-white, visualizing the emotional deprivation felt by the characters. This loss of color signifies more than just the absence of a central figure; it serves as a device revealing the temporary collapse of the utopian solidarity the three shared. After confronting their respective anxieties and loneliness, Anto and Marti temporarily regain color the moment they form a new intimacy exclusive to the two of them. This demonstrates that the departure of a specific subject within a polyamorous dynamic can completely recreate the remaining framework.

📐 Power Realignment in Triangles and the Boomerang of Alienation

Laia originally functioned as the anchor supporting this tripartite relationship and as the narrative narrative adhesive. However, when she observes the daily lives of the remaining two from afar through social media, the direction of alienation is reversed. The narrative structure, wherein the subject controlling the relationship is instead pushed outside the boundary, is striking. What Laia faces upon her return is a deepened world of Anto and Marti that has achieved completeness without her, transparently exposing the fluidity inherent in polyamory and the human limitations of jealousy within it.

🔍 Reinterpreting the Ending of Petit Mal: The Aesthetics of the Gray Zone Left by Eternal Fractures

After Laia returns home, the three physically reunite, but they fail to return to their previous, flawlessly unbroken state. The new density developed between Marti and Anto brings unfamiliar jealousy and loneliness to Laia, and the film concludes within an uncertain gray zone without a clear resolution of conflict. The protagonists come to share the anxiety that they can be displaced and alienated at any time, as the price for maintaining the fulfillment provided by their tripartite union.

Rather than presenting an ideal completion or a catastrophe of polyamory, the ending of this film signifies a state of structural calibration that leaves open the potential for organic transformation within relationships.

❓ Questioning the Form of Relationships: Interpretation of the Petit Mal Ending

💬 Regarding the Criticism That the Film Treats Polyamory Merely as an Excessively Private and Micro-Level Conflict

Some critics point out that this work becomes submerged in a micro-narrative of emotional jealousy and alienation among three individuals, rather than exploring the social and institutional issues of polyamory in depth. This criticism stems from the low-budget, independent, DIY-style characteristics of the film.

However, rather than presenting a massive grand discourse, the director focuses on sharply deconstructing internal vulnerabilities through a “real-life-based fiction” format. This approach, which questions the sustainability of polyamory through changes in characters’ expressions and color palettes instead of macro-analysis, independently confronts the audience with reflections on the inherently possessive nature of love.

✨ Petit Mal, the Afterimage of Monopoly Faced by Those Who Rejected Possession

The ending of this film shows that human emotions such as jealousy and isolation remain entirely valid even for those who deviate from the framework of monogamy defined by modern society. Even when expanding the form of love, the total amount of individual loneliness does not decrease; relationships remain unstable organisms that must be constantly transformed and realigned.

Love is not a fixed institutional form, but a dynamic process of continuously negotiating absence and presence.

💬 When a Crack Appears in Your Universe

When you feel the anxiety of losing your own intact place within a relationship with others, what choice do you make?

• [Silence] I choose the stability of the relationship while hiding my internal jealousy and loneliness.
• [Confrontation] I honestly acknowledge the altered distance and realign the structure of the relationship.

🎬 Violet Screen Curation: Other Perspectives Piercing Emotional Fractures

Ma belle, my beauty (2021)

• Reason for Recommendation: Set in the South of France, this work depicts the subtle jealousy and lingering attraction that unfold when a man and women previously entangled in a polyamorous relationship reunite. It unpacks the themes of emotional residue and relationship realignment through a sensory and mature lens, making it an excellent companion piece to this film.

The Feels (2017)

• Reason for Recommendation: On a weekend trip gathering a lesbian couple about to be married and their friends, an unexpected confession by one protagonist causes cracks in relational trust and sexual intimacy. It is a light yet sharp drama capturing this process.