Christian Petzold, after many recent films with diverse themes and genres, goes back to the theme of his earlier films (The State I am In, Ghosts and Barbara) - the concept of family with Miroirs No. 3. When I talked with him after his film Barbara (2015) came out, this is what he told me about the theme of his films back then:
"Say, there is a shipwreck, and people are scrounging up to build a raft out of what's left over. Since 2000, all my movies are about this structural collapse (both economic and familial) and people trying to build a lifeboat to survive. So what's happening on the raft.... All these films, they are trying to rebuild something you can live with, out of the ruins.... We have to find little survival structures and I think that's what my movies are about."
With the world that seems more chaotic than ever - genocide in Gaza and Sudan, prolonged war in Ukraine, periodic school shootings and political violence and intensifying commercial colonialsm, I believe Petzold is looking inwards, and finding that the concept of family more important as ever.
Petzold is a master storyteller and it's not uncommon that everything he does has elaborate back stories. He chose Miroirs No. 3 as a title of his new film from Composer Maurice Ravel's 5 piece piano suite Miroirs. No.3 being titled Une barque sur l’océan/A Boat on the Ocean. Hence, the film about a makeshift family, completely makes sense.
The film concerns a music student Laura (Petzold's frequent collaborator, Paula Beer). She is seen a little disoriented in her surroundings, lost in her thoughts near the water's edge. When she gets to her apartment, her boyfriend, Jacob, and other couple friends are waiting for her. They are supposed to go away to the countryside. While being driven in the car, she notices an older woman Betty (Barbara Auer, also a Petzold alum) on the side of the road. As if she had a premonition, at a gas stop, Laura tells Jacob that she wants to go back home. Disappointed Jacob relents to her demands. He will drive her to the nearby train station to go back home.
On the way to the station, Laura notices Betty again and the car crashes. Jacob's dead but Laura is unscathed. Betty runs to the crash site and Laura, for some reason, wants to stay with Betty in her empty house indefinitely. It turns out Betty lost her daughter to suicide and her family broke apart. She was in a mental hospital and her mechanic husband Richard (another Petzold regular, Mathias Brandt) and their son Max (Enno Trebs), moved out. She was painting picket fences of her house while witnessing Laura's car crash. Not knowing Betty's family history story, Laura and Betty carry on their living arrangement.
With Laura staying in Betty's untouched dead daughter's room, the two women fall into daily routine - gardening and cooking, while some neighbors gossip outside their house. Laura insists on cooking for Betty's family and they invite Richard and Max, who reluctantly come. "Betty's off her medication," Richard and Max say in their worried voices and sideway glances. Then they meet Laura and get warmed up in her presence and they also carry on their daily routine. Laura visits them in their garage, riding their dead daughter's bike, fixing meals. As long as Betty's happy, they would carry on their make-believe family.
At various points, the family members attempt to tell Laura the truth. And when the truth comes out, it freaks out Laura. It's too creepy for her and her real father from Berlin picks her up. They would never see her again.
Music plays a pivotal role in Miroirs No. 3. It connects characters, not in a superficial, tugging at your heart strings way, but more of a shared experience, that unspoken acknowledgement and understanding among people. Petzold, in his usual economical ways, presents smaller, tighter films with only a few main actors and locations. In terms of scale, The film has the look and feel of his last film, Afire, taking place in a rural setting.
The melodic piano composition of Miroirs No. 3 reflects the sound of the gentle waves. Whatever the circumstances of the people who are lost at sea in that scenario, the music is soothing and calm, reflecting on the comfort of a family. The white picket fence that Betty is painting also reflects the yearning for ideal family life. As the title suggests, everything is a reflection of what should have been. It's the idea of a perfect family that haunts Petzold's characters, even though they never had it in the first place. And it is this tragedy in the modern world that Petzold keeps stressing with his films: yearning for the ideal world that never has materialized under the capitalist system.
Paula Beer is, as always, magnificent as a troubled young woman who is missing something in her life. So is Petzold regular Barbara Auer and Mathias Brandt in their roles as deeply scarred parents over the death of their child.
As usual, Petzold's Miroirs No. 3 is a compact, masterful filmmaking with affecting performances. One of the year's best.
