Miroirs No. 3

 

Director Christian Petzold

Petzold with actress Paula Beer

MIROIRS NO. 3                   B+                                                                                           Germany  (86 mi)  2025  d: Christian Petzold

Another striking film from Christian Petzold, the maker of Yella (2007), Jerichow (2008), the first part of the Dreileben Trilogy, Beats Being Dead (Dreileben 1 - Etwas Besseres als den Tod) (2012), Barbara (2012), 2015 Top Ten List # 3 Phoenix (2014), 2018 Top Ten List #3 Transit, 2020 Top Ten List #6 Undine, and Afire (Roter Himmel) (2023), all films worth recommending, and this is no different.  No longer working within a historical framework, or a mythical tone, scaling back the ambitions and complexity in a smaller framework, offering a simpler, more minimalist premise, resembling the shortness and lightness of a François Ozon chamber drama, or even one of Éric Rohmer’s moral tales, with few characters, and the settings reduced to the bare essentials, yet this is told in a completely different manner, more distanced, introspective, and cleverly ambiguous, remaining emotionally dense while sustaining the interest throughout.  Some have described this as a Gothic fairy tale, a compilation of fantasy, imagination, and tragedy, much like 2020 Top Ten List #6 Undine, but this feels more like an odd encounter with grief, approaching the subject in an original way, turning a late summer film into a ghost story, as the film is haunted by ghosts of the past.  Once again writing his own story, premiering at the Director’s Fortnight section at Cannes, this accessible and extremely well-acted project is simply not like other films, where what starts out as one story morphs into a completely different story, adding even more interest and allure, as all the lead characters are likeable, where the audience is drawn into what will happen next.  A drama full of open secrets and the difficult search for healing, shot in the Uckermark, part of East Germany after the war, primarily using just two locations, and the linking passageway in between, where this is a portrait of people in transition, and about losing someone, as the way people deal with trauma and grief is decidedly different, yet extremely individualistic, where what works for one may not work for another.  In this case, the film views these aspects from different perspectives, like a collective community, though they all revolve around a self-absorbed central character who is our eyes and ears into what we’re seeing, offering no contextual backdrop information, yet mixing moments of absurd comedy with bleak tragedy.  Meet Laura (Petzold regular Paula Beer in their fourth collaboration), a university piano student from Berlin, who is out on a countryside jaunt with friends on a work/vacation trip when things take a tragic turn, as her overbearing boyfriend, Jakob (Philip Froissant), who she says “isn’t a proper boyfriend,” seems to be getting on her last nerve, as he’s reminded that she didn’t really want to go on this trip at all, irritated and upset that he’s forced to drive her back to the train station, until the red convertible car he’s driving suddenly swerves into an empty field and is killed on the spot, like the tragic car accident in Yella, while she is thrown away from the vehicle and is basically unharmed, but clearly in distress.  It’s a startling way for things to begin, but even more surprising is that she doesn’t wish to be taken to the hospital, but prefers to be cared for by a local woman she saw on the side of the road from the car, Betty (Barbara Auer, who starred in Petzold’s 2000 debut THE STATE I AM IN), who helps her up and walks her to her nearby home, curiously looking after her, where the two quickly become friends.  In something of a foreshadowing, it was Barbara’s face that Laura saw as they whizzed by just seconds before the crash, which takes place offscreen.

Even earlier, Laura is seen on the railing of an old bridge looking down at the water below, eventually making her way down to the river’s edge where she quietly takes in the natural sounds of birds and the trees rustling in the wind, staring silently as a man standing in a canoe slowly paddles by, like an image from Arnold Böcklin’s painting Isle of the Dead, Isle of the Dead (painting), suggestive of the ferryman Charon on the River Styx transporting bodies to the underworld, and much like Chantal Akerman’s use of Rachmaninoff’s The Isle of the Dead symphony in The Captive (La Captive) (2000).  This all happens quietly, with no explanation, allowing viewers to soak it in and decipher what they’re seeing, but an image of death haunts this film from the outset.  Laura appears to be a shadow of herself, and everywhere in the film hangs a similar dark mood, where even before the accident she seems to have been lost in a deep void, remaining something of an enigma through the entire film, but she is simply the vehicle through which Petzold tells his story.  Unlike Nina Hoss in Yella, whose character is already dead, but doesn’t know it, Betty essentially gives Laura a new start, two women from different generations, offering her own room, a fresh set of clothes, and a supportive ally, where they make a kind of special connection, showing her how to paint a fence, and providing her own bike to ride as they roam through the countryside together, MIROIRS NO. 3 Clip | TIFF 2025  YouTube (1:24).  Rather than feel remorse, Laura is surprisingly unaffected by the loss of her friend, indicating, “I should be sad, but I’m not.”  Yet what she does do is completely disassociate herself from her past life, retreating from the world to a place where life in the countryside is more peaceful and calm, more in touch with the basic everyday realities, where there’s literally no pressure on her, perhaps feeling a little too comfortable too quickly, until it becomes clear that this family is keeping a dark secret.  She’s surprised to learn that Betty has an estranged husband Richard (Matthias Brandt) and son Max (Enno Trebs) living a short distance away, working together in a garage, as both are handymen who work on cars and can fix just about anything, which is significant as Betty has a dripping faucet, a broken dishwasher, and a few other items in need of repair, but she’s hesitant to ask them, as they’ve grown apart recently.  Nonetheless, they all get together for a meal of potato and dumplings that Laura prepares, which goes well, like a peace offering, but the men are extremely reticent, as if remaining suspicious of Betty’s newly discovered friend, where what they all have in common is an inability to express their feelings, which leaves much unsaid and unexplained.  Repair appears to be a metaphor for broken families, with the drama focusing on the various ways a family can recover from its losses, as there’s something lingering under the surface, a common theme in multiple Petzold films.  Repairing the damage we see all around us is becoming more commonplace in the modern world, as so much is being destroyed right before our eyes, yet what’s interesting is that the filmmaker makes viewers aware of each new character’s point of view simply by the way scenes are shot by his longtime cameraman Hans Fromm, who has worked with Petzold since the beginning, creating a formally concealed world founded purely on carefully calibrated gazes and nuanced actions.  Christian Petzold is a skilled storyteller, and these multiple perspectives provide what amounts to subjective feelings and objective truths, establishing a rhythm of their subsequent interactions through a precision-based choreography of motion.

One of the best contemporary filmmakers, Petzold belongs to the Berlin School of Films, distinguished by the clarity of the places the characters inhabit, a house, a garden, a fence, the sun-kissed fields, a country road, a garage, where every detail reveals the feelings of the characters.  Music also plays a prominent part of the film, where the entitled impressionistic piece from Maurice Ravel is often heard in the background during the many travels through the countryside, Adriana von Franqué: Maurice Ravel - Une barque sur l'océan (Official Music Video) - MIROIRS NO. 3 YouTube (7:46).  One of the small moments that stands out in the early scenes is that Laura possesses a rare gift, as within seconds she can easily recognize what key a song is in that happens to be playing on the car radio.  We only later learn that she’s a piano student, with Betty expressing an interest in hearing her play, choosing a very recognizable Chopin piece, Prélude Op. 28, No. 4, considered to be one of the most famous of the Chopin preludes, which was played in its entirety by Jack Nicholson in Bob Rafelson’s FIVE EASY PIECES (`1970), five easy pieces - the chopin scene YouTube (3:13).  Laura’s level of comfort reaches a peak with a song playing in the garage when she arrives, sharing a beer with Max as they listen to an oldie but goodie from 1972, Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons - The Night (Official Audio) YouTube (3:25), with its infectious rhythm and beat, both seemingly swooning with happiness until she gets too close, where he violently pushes her away, knocking her to the ground, causing her to run away in utter fright at seemingly having unleashed a monster.  While the film contains many silences, smoking a cigarette in the evening light, or Betty standing at the front gate in the middle of the night when she can’t sleep, as if waiting for someone to arrive, the film slowly fills in the blanks, where Laura’s presence reminds this broken family of Betty’s daughter who tragically took her own life, with Laura situated in her room, wearing her old clothes, a constant reminder of what the family has lost.  With possible references to Otto Preminger’s Laura (1944), Hitchcock’s Vertigo (1958), or even Aki Kaurismäki’s THE MAN WITHOUT A PAST (2002), Laura offers a kind of identity substitution, yet she is no substitute for the family’s unending pain.  While the source of Laura’s anguish is unknown, Betty’s torment, on the other hand, is more clearly defined, as her family is carrying a recognizable trauma that visibly affects her life.  While both women have lost something, this film is not a tragedy, revealing instead how silence, restraint, and subtle emotion can make a deep impression.  It’s an interesting scenario, as it starts out being about Laura, but quickly turns into the dysfunctional family dynamic of Betty, where viewers can only imagine what they all feel.  That violent moment in the garage, however, seems to have awakened Laura from her reverie, as this little excursion into the countryside has made her painfully aware of everyone’s deficiencies, deciding immediately to return back to her life in Berlin, leaving without so much as uttering a word.  While remaining a quintessential women’s film, like Douglas Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows (1955), essentially this is the tale of a return to life, with all that entails, the perception of a new light, or a positive wind, which translates into moments of absolute tenderness or even carefree joy, but also the hesitations, the uncertainties, and the embarrassment of those who must learn to feel again.  In the end we see Laura back at the conservatory playing her graduation piece, which is a return to the evocative Ravel piece, the third movement (A Boat on the Ocean) from a larger five-movement suite entitled Miroirs, filled with imagery and mood, yet what it evokes is the exact moment when the broken figures are reassembled, bringing the film full circle with an unconventional finale, offering no real revelation, instead conveying transcendence through art, though not quite having the same impact as the utterly sublime Debussy piece played at the end of Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s TOKYO SONATA (2008), Tôkyô sonata - Kiyoshi Kurosawa (2008) - ending. YouTube (7:13).

Afire (Roter Himmel)

 

Writer/director Christian Petzold

Silver Bear Award at Berlin

cinematographer Hans Fromm setting the shot

Petzold on the set

AFIRE (Roter Himmel)                      B+                                                                                  Germany  (102 mi)  2023  d: Christian Petzold

Every day at eventide                                                                                                                  The sultan’s daughter fair                                                                                                               Wandered by the fountain                                                                                                              Where the white water purls

Every day at eventide                                                                                                                   The young slave stood by the fountain                                                                                           Where the white water purls                                                                                                          And every day his face grew paler

Then one evening the princess                                                                                          Approached him and suddenly spoke:                                                                                       “Your name I wish to know,                                                                                                           Your homeland and your tribe.”

Said the slave, “My name                                                                                                                 Is Mohamet, I come from Yemen                                                                                                      And my tribe is the Asra                                                                                                                  Who perish when they love.”

—Heinrich Heine, Der Asra (L’Asra), 1846

Winner of the Silver Bear Prize (2nd Place) at the 2023 Berlin Film Festival, German director Christian Petzold has a tendency to make surgically precise, pensively brooding films that linger long afterwards, like 2015 Top Ten List # 3 Phoenix, and 2018 Top Ten List #3 Transit, heavy historical films with contemporary implications, but this more lighthearted film is a first for him, and might even be described as a black comedy, as it similarly explores the dark mysteries of the human condition by showcasing how ridiculously blind and delusional we tend to be in pursuit of our own short-sided agendas.  Petzold was isolated with Covid at the outbreak of the pandemic, leaving him plenty of time to binge-watch the films of Éric Rohmer, as a box set of 25 films was gifted to him by Margaret Ménégoz from Les Films du Losange, his French distributor co-founded by Rohmer in 1962, while also reading Chekhov’s An Artist's Story, and any number of French and American “summer films,” which motivated him to make a series of doomed love stories loosely inspired by the classical elements of water, earth, fire, and air, starting a German Romanticism trilogy with 2020 Top Ten List #6 Undine, an allegorical tale of an elusive water nymph, while this film uses a fire motif that alerts us to catastrophic danger, yet people blithely overlook the possibilities, never even changing their normal routines until forced to do so, becoming a critique of bourgeois self-obsession.  Due to pandemic restrictions, Petzold was forced to deviate from his familiar shooting style, using a small crew and just a few actors while staging this film quite differently, unable to show the physical presence of bodies during sex (sound replaces what we normally see), yet there’s plenty of fun to be had in this mesmerizing standoff between love and nature, while also chock full of surprises that may catch viewers off-guard, with plenty of misunderstandings, embarrassments, and humiliation in this quietly atmospheric study of artistic isolation and ego.  The ambiguity that pervades throughout this slow comedy of manners is most intriguing, where you keep waiting for something to happen, with Petzold literally toying with the audience, and nothing turns out the way you expect.  This is a deliriously existential tale told through the perspective of one of the characters, Leon (Thomas Schubert), an unlikeable Fassbinder style protagonist (even bearing a slight resemblance), a one-time successful writer who is having trouble with his second book, satirically entitled Club Sandwich (recalling Charles Bukowski’s Ham on Rye), facing an artistic crisis when he retreats from Berlin to the tranquility of a vacation home in Ahrenshoop on the coast of the Baltic Sea in the former GDR with his friend Felix (Langston Uibel).  A deeply reflective film divided between desire and reason, symbolism and realism, comedy and tragedy, certainly one of the fascinating aspects is the dreamlike opening music (“Love’s gonna make us blind”) from Austrian siblings known as Wallners that bookends the film, lulling viewers into a false sense of security as they drive through the forest to get to the sea, WALLNERS // IN MY MIND (Official Video) - Vimeo (4:12), and while the beauty of the natural landscape is intoxicating, there is a sudden jolt of silence and disappointment when the car breaks down miles from their destination, stopped dead in their tracks in an isolated forested area with no cellphone reception, yet Felix believes he knows a shortcut through the woods to his family’s summer cottage.  With Leon left alone with the eerie sounds of nature, we’re immediately attuned to feelings of dread, as any number of possibilities might spark disaster in a horror film, beautifully captured by Petzold’s longtime cinematographer Hans Fromm, literally soaked in poetic realism, yet the first order of business is making a mental adjustment, as all is not what it seems, though every moment feels like a constant discovery.  Like Neil Simon’s The Odd Couple, a dark cloud follows the grumpy Leon wherever he goes, constantly annoyed, always finding something to whine about even in the best of times, a seriously repressed, high maintenance guy stuck in his own head who believes his opportunities are being swept away.  Finding himself on the outside looking in, like a distant and detached observer, he literally shuns the world around him, which allows us to see him through the perspective of others, while Felix, ever the optimist and openly expressive, has a completely different outlook, seen patiently saving the day, but they are both exhausted hauling all their luggage in the dark the rest of the way.   

More surprises await them, as dirty dishes, half-eaten food, an unmade bed, and empty wine glasses greet them upon their arrival, so the house already has a guest, retreating into a spare bedroom only to be awakened in the middle of the night from the relentless sounds of sex coming from an adjoining room, driving Leon outside, sleeping under the stars, where he’s forced to contend with pesky mosquitoes.  So the lay of the land is not ideal, as apparently they’ll be sharing the retreat with a stranger who’s already nabbed the larger room, someone they’ve heard but not yet seen, only catching a glimpse of her before she dashes off on her bicycle the next morning, finally allowing Leon some peace and quiet, choosing the garden gazebo as a place to write, while Felix heads off to the beach for a swim, which is just a short distance away through the woods.  Of course, Leon inevitably gets sidetracked, not really in the mood to write, so instead he stupidly throws a tennis ball off the walls of the house as a means to pass the time before scrounging around in the other guest’s room, searching for clues, listening to their music, before absurdly racing back to his laptop computer when he hears Felix returning to make it look like he’s seriously lost in thought.  The stage is set, as Leon is a snobbish, self-absorbed artist who thinks only of himself, as if art is only attainable for the fortunate few, while Felix, an aspiring photographer himself, is extraordinarily accommodating, where they are at opposite ends of the spectrum.  Add to the mix Nadja (Paula Beer in another one of her woman of mystery roles making her third film with Petzold), an upbeat and intelligent woman living the weightless summer fantasy who sells ice cream out of a cart in town but wants to make amends for the nocturnal inconvenience by inviting them both for dinner, joining her current boyfriend Devid (Enno Trebs), who is a lifeguard at the beach, though he prefers “rescue swimmer.”  Both Leon and Felix happened to run into him at his beachside post earlier in the day, but only Felix spent any time getting to know him, with Leon playing the part of a tormented artist, dressed entirely in black, including long sleeves, standing out from everybody else, brazenly calling attention to himself, as he hates the beach and anything connected to physical activity, while the more jovial Felix was completely relaxed and ready to enjoy the sea, spending much of his time assembling photographic material for admission into a prestigious Berlin art school.  As in Rohmer’s PAULINE ON THE BEACH (1983) or A Summer's Tale (Conte d'été) (1996), mood and conversations are cheerful, as the dinner out under the open sky has an idyllic nature to it, with Devid providing a long-winded narration that has Nadja beaming with delight, while Leon looks bored, as if he couldn’t care less, but the heightened interest in the story catches both men off-guard, as the carefully calculated payoff turns into an opportunity for a quick kiss with Felix, which is completely unexpected, yet the whole point of it all.  Leon is literally sneering with arrogant disdain, believing he is intellectually superior, wondering why he is wasting his time instead of working on his book, condescendingly looking down on them as if they hardly matter at all, exhibiting paternalistic derision, while at the same time he is interested in and completely distracted by Nadja, but is unable to express his feelings, remaining shy and overly wary.  Petzold has a history as a provocateur, intentionally stirring things up, and with Leon he’s created a loathsome and unsympathetic character, continually seen sulking, looking for all the world like a hypocrite, yet he’s the one carrying the story, hilariously missing everything that’s happening all around him.  In what appears to be a fitting tribute to Sofia Coppola, Petzold alters his style, where it seems like nothing of any consequence is happening, yet a different kind of language is being communicated by subdued emotions, simple gestures, and furtive eye contact, where a wordless chamber drama is taking place before our eyes using only the subtlest of details, a subconscious reality that remains an enigma for viewers, like a puzzle that needs to be assembled, creating an unforgettable film about smoldering love, longing, and transience.    

None of them feel threatened by the sheer size of a growing forest fire that is alarming, as the wind direction away from the water makes them believe they are safe, yet they can see the red sky off in the distance, with the constant drone of helicopters buzzing past carrying loads of water.  The Autobahn is closed nearby, some resort towns have already been evacuated, with panic and alarm dominating the news reports, but not for this motley crew.  The unhurried pace of the film is typical of Rohmer’s style, where the formation of casual relationships takes center stage, accentuating the interpersonal in a beachside setting that allows for a summertime fantasy escape from the problems of the real world.  What’s so amusing is Leon’s response to this idyllic getaway, as whenever he’s invited to go for a swim with the others at the beach, he shows little curiosity and refuses to have a good time, where his standard answer is “My work won’t allow it,” which even he finds ridiculous, where the more obnoxious he acts, the more he despises himself, but it’s part of his act as a supposed serious writer to be socially aloof and pretentiously evasive, with no time for anyone, obsessed only with his own talent.  When Nadja offers to read his manuscript, he quickly rejects her, but seeing her disenchanted reaction to his dismissiveness, has second thoughts, plagued by self-doubt, growing ever more desperate and unsure.  When she decides to read it right there on the spot, he looks like a lost puppy waiting to be reunited with its owner, fidgeting around the grounds in sheer discomfort.  But when she renders her verdict that it’s positively dreadful, the decisiveness leaves him cold, deciding she’s only an ice cream vendor.  What does she know?  The real verdict will come from his editor, Helmut (Matthias Brandt), and he’s twisted himself into knots in anticipation of his expected arrival, where they plan to spend the weekend going over his manuscript together, placing great importance on the outcome.  When Helmut finally arrives he can only spend the night, and rather than go to a restaurant in town, he’d prefer to have dinner with the collected group, which infuriates Leon, having so little time, wanting him all to himself.  The theatrical nature of the dinner is a thing of beauty, as Helmut takes serious interest in everyone’s artistic ambitions except Leon, who he religiously avoids, leaving him silently fuming in disgust.  One by one he explores both Felix and Nadja’s projects that they’re working on, offering genuine interest and positive feedback, especially for Nadja’s Doctoral interest in German poet Heinrich Heine (Heinrich Heine: A Life of Contradictions), a contemporary of musicians Robert Schumann and Franz Schubert whose poetry was used as lyrics for German Lieder.  Steeped in his typical formal precision, Petzold, who was trained as a literary scholar, similarly draws from earlier artworks to transform his own, exploring the possibilities of his own perspective, where the film is a testament that art is not the purview of some exclusive club, available only for the serious-minded, but is a human activity that is moved precisely by the artist’s ability to connect with others, to touch the heart, where the big questions of life can be found in the most unspectacular moments and encounters.  The jaw-dropping scene of the film is the discovery that Nadja is not just a seasonal worker but a literary scholar as she recites one of Heine’s poems from memory about a tribe “who perish when they love,” a deeply moving moment that simply dumbfounds Leon by adding a touch of literary intellectualism, never seeing that coming, suddenly realizing he’s not the most impressive intellect of the group, making him feel terribly small, as if crushed like a bug.  What elevates this film is a sudden change in tone that comes late, with a glorious nighttime phenomenon of bioluminescence on the water when “the sea shines” that references Rohmer’s Le Rayon Vert (Summer) (1986), veering into unexplored territory that beautifully mixes dark humor with full-blown tragedy, where Leon is simply befuddled by it all, experiencing his own existential transformation that comes out of nowhere, with viewers similarly emerging regenerated, with the film projecting into our own interiority and sensitivity to the world.  When ash finally falls from the sky like heavy snowflakes, it’s one of the most gorgeous shots of the film, while the flames on the horizon that had always felt like a metaphor for desire, seemingly so far away, suddenly draw near, as the rhythm, tone, and genre of the film are completely transformed with dizzying speed, becoming a hauntingly intense and complex experience that will leave viewers flummoxed.  

Christian Petzold's Closet Picks Criterion picks, YouTube (5:08)