Miriors No3. is a new release from the European auteur, Christian Petzold.
Christian Petzold is one of Europe’s most humble filmmaking auteurs – a director who makes quiet and modest films of mature intellect, films that focus upon relationships that are not flashy and are reminiscent of Bergman.
When he had his first premiere at Venice in 2000, Petzold was lucky enough to have a conversation with renowned French New Wave celebrant Claude Chabrol. Who passed on some advice: ‘Men are living. Women are surviving. Cinema should be about surviving.’
His newest film reunites with frequent collaborator Paula Beer tells the story of Laura, who is involved in a car accident that kills her boyfriend. Before the accident, she sees a woman, Betty (gardening by her home fence) starring at her as she drives past. Betty is painting her picket fence – the fence such an evocation of Sirkian melodrama, the fence the permanent barrier around the proud homestead, something that keeps people out and also the people in.
That minor look or glance leads to Betty caring for Laura in her recuperation per her request. This caring act however causes trouble for her husband, Richard, and son, Max, as Laura bears a striking similarity to their deceased daughter/sister.
So begins an examination of the human condition that has to deal with loss and grief – the connection they hope to form with Laura gives the family an opportunity at closure having never had that when their daughter was alive and before her passing.
It reminded me of a scene from Naqqash Khalid’s In Camera (2024), when the lead actor takes a job pretending to be the deceased son for a grieving mother so she can still function as a mother. That scene is played seriously and when the moment of emotive explosion occurs it stays with you.
There are delicate flourishes running throughout the film – the use of eating together as a family at meal time for conversation, the deliberate touch of the small community making the family business local mechanics, this marks them as lynchpins of the town – everyone comes to them for help and yet following the tragedy they are markedly set apart and alone in their grief.
One such delicate moment when Laura and Max let down their guard, drink a beer together and listen to Frankie Valli’s ‘The Night’; this is reminiscent of the dancing scene in Peter Weir’s Witness when John Book (Harrison Ford) and Rachel (Kelly McGillis) dance to Sam Cooke’s ‘What A Wonderful World’. The reason for this comparison is that both films feature people who are thrust into a new community by necessity or accident; the song shows a togetherness and breaks down boundaries.
Petzold is one of the few auteurs who is distinctly his own style; his closest European comparison would be that of the Dardennes (intimate dramas) and Almodovar (use of doubles and melodrama), yet this film recalls the era of Alfred Hitchcock – the narrative device of a double to help someone overcome grief recalls Vertigo (1958) mostly. Petzold, like Hitchcock with James Stewart’s Scotty, does not mock the family’s intentions and instead looks past the on the surface delusion to perhaps better understand that need for a connection. The family’s act of goodwill could be construed as selfish, instead it is rightly something from the heart.
A minor critique would be the fact that Laura does not have the moment to grieve for her boyfriend (who while a douche in the few moments we experienced with him), she is helped to recover from her injury and finds solace in her piano playing before returning to the conservatoire to resume her training.
The ethos mentioned at the start about surviving can be seen across much of Petzold’s filmography anchored again by Beer’s presence in this enriching film experience.
Miroirs No.3 is released from New Wave Films on April 24th.
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