Christian Petzold‘s gossamer newest movie, “Mirrors No. 3,” is as compact as a novella, as ephemeral in its emotion, as delicate in register as one of many Chopin or Ravel items that float by means of it. A thriller lady, standing on a bridge, misplaced in thought. An amnesiac searching for respite. A automotive flipped the wrong way up, its driver’s brains spilled onto the street whereas its passenger stares on, unhurt. Later, she eats apples in a mattress that belongs to a different lady, in garments that belong to that lady’s daughter, making an attempt on one other life virtually as a lark.
German filmmaker Petzold involves Cannes for the primary time with a minor-key new drama, which burrows into the psyche regardless of its slim working time and virtually perverse refusal to clarify itself or the shapes its narrative takes. The title comes from a bit written by Ravel — sure, that one you in all probability know from the trailer for “Name Me By Your Title,” however the affiliations with the idylls of summer time love and coming-of-age finish proper there. Writing and directing a script that advanced through the making of his final characteristic, “Afire,” Petzold has by no means been much less forthcoming, the photographs from cinematographer Hans Fromm by no means overstating themselves. Nor does Petzold’s common collaborator Paula Beer, who shifts with silvery, slippery ease between states of bemusement and shock. “Mirrors” is one other beautiful showcase for what makes her alchemy with Petzold succeed so nicely.
She performs Laura, a pianist in an unfulfilling relationship whose boyfriend, virtually as quickly because the film begins, will get them right into a reasonably instantly (and hardly dramatically) staged automotive accident, he on the wheel and now lifeless. Close by, a middle-aged lady, Betty (Barbara Auer), was portray a white-picket fence, an virtually cliche picture of the buildings we encompass ourselves with to really feel secure and comforted in opposition to the altering weathers of potential emotional smash. Did her presence (or look?) trigger the accident? Laura finally stumbles from the wreck and onto the steps of Betty’s residence, and into her largesse. Because the items of Betty’s personal previous come into place, we are able to see the place this story is headed as Laura turns into a surrogate daughter for Betty whereas establishing a brand new, mother-daughter-like routine.
Petzold has made grander cinematic statements earlier than, from the amnesiac Hitchcock homage “Phoenix” (starring his former muse Nina Hoss as a Holocaust survivor whose facial disfigurement permits her to impersonate another person solely to win again her estranged husband) to “Transit,” which starred Franz Rogowski and instructed a World Warfare II story in Berlin however with anachronistically trendy set design. Petzold’s final movie, “Afire,” felt like a kind of ‘80s arthouse one-offs somebody like Éric Rohmer would make, with characters chatting over a prolonged luncheon about their hopes, fears, and issues, analyzing them into the unforgivable marrow of turning into sick of themselves.
“Mirrors No. 3” has a contact of Rohmer by way of its misleading effervescence. Working at lower than 90 minutes — making it a right away contender in opposition to the arguments that there would ever be any extra right here, particularly in a film second the place two-and-a-half hours has turn into the usual working time — Petzold’s newest movie isn’t particularly giving of emotion. Neither is its lead, performed by “Transit,” “Undine,” and “Afire” actress Beer, particularly scrutable. However Beer’s efficiency is one other shimmering surprise, a stark distinction to the manic-pixie-dream-girl adjoining she performed in “Afire.”
On this movie, Beer portrays her character as a clean ready to be stuffed. No matter is happening along with her and boyfriend Jakob within the first scenes, she desires nothing to do with the work journey he’s dragging her on in opposition to her will. The film even begins along with her staring out a flowing river — for those who thought we had been executed with Petzold’s fascination with the weather after “Undine” and “Afire,” languid pictures of shifting water will sign in any other case — in a daze, as if she doesn’t know the place she is or the place she’s going. She reacts to the information of his loss of life, and the fallout of it, with a shrug.
When Paula begins dressing Laura in her daughter’s garments — together with a purple Babybel T-shirt that nearly instantly infantilizes Laura — we all know we’re in for some form of Bergmanesque change between girls, the idealizing of a whole stranger who may resemble your individual lifeless daughter, a lot in order that she passes for her. The ladies play off one another, or with one another at different occasions, contrapuntally like music, which appears to have impressed the psychological construction of “Mirrors No. 3,” extra about whiffs of impressions of concepts than concrete symbols.
Laura additionally types an in depth relationship with Paula’s son (Enno Trebs), whose blond mullet and stoic face strikingly resemble these of her now-dead boyfriend Jakob. Petzold loves doubles, and significantly in a dizzied state, as a approach to emphasize how the individuals we idealize in love could solely be that preferrred factor as soon as they’re realized within the type of another person. Another person not fairly them, not fairly the person you’ve been sharing a mattress with for years, however an in depth sufficient resemblance to conjure that old-time feeling.
“Mirrors No. 3” typically feels as concussed as its most important heroine doubtlessly is, with narrative elisions that defy straightforward fixing or understanding. Connections, right here, are like static electrical energy. Laura’s sudden, seemingly preternatural capacity to make Koeningsburg Dumplings for her host’s husband and son comes from nowhere. It is a lady born from an accident, in any case, and into the possibility to dwell one other life.
Grade: B
“Mirrors No. 3” premiered on the 2025 Cannes Movie Competition. Metrograph Photos has North American distribution rights.
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