In a Christian Petzold film, secrets attain a pleasurable, ghostly aura. Disclosures and epiphanies warrant utmost respect—their unravelling constantly recasting the film in a new light. Individuals choosing when to open up to each other isn’t so much the catalysing moment as it is the lead up through layers of not knowing. In this loose, liminal space, Petzold takes the most surprising leaps. His 2014 film, Phoenix, sifted through the ashes of postwar Germany and created characters seeking to escape their past, yet being sucked into it. Most of his works hit off an interface between history and the present moment—a dislodging sense of comprehension. Mirrors No.3 catapults that staggered awareness into an almost-intangible place, winding from unuttered sorrow to tough, necessary acceptance.
When the film introduces Laura (Paula Beer in her fourth reunion with Petzold) accompanying her boyfriend, Jakob, on a trip, she strikes as disconnected. Her attention is elsewhere. She doesn’t want to be there. An accident near the German countryside kills Jakob. A harrowed Laura is helped out of the mangled car by a local, Betty (Barbara Auer). Laura instantly declares it’s at Betty’s place she will crash for a while. Her life back in Berlin stays suspended. The arrangement seems to pan out organically for Laura and Betty, whose inner lives are opaquely traced.
Petzold isn’t interested in grand, fussy drama; instead, he indulges in spare sensations. A moment is often so minute that pinning it within vocabulary becomes elusive. The exact outlines of grief and emotional desolation the two women are harbouring accords them dignity. They open up rarely, but forge a bond wherein each feels the other. There’s a sense of equality in the wounds being heard and nursed, being lifted above their own abscesses. Each quietly empowers the other to heal and move on. Laura takes to her new shelter unaffectedly. She paints the fences, lends a hand in the garden. There’s an implicit understanding one grants the other, which evades men. Stuck in bereavement, Betty is shunted by her husband, Richard (Matthias Brandt), and son, Max (Enno Trebs). She has long been disconsolate. It’s weighed so deep on the family that Richard and Max don’t live in the house anymore. Laura gives Betty a reprieve for her own mourning to uncloud.
When Richard and Max drop by at Betty’s request and Laura casually and genially bobs around, the tension at the family’s heart becomes immediate and transparent. This is a family that’s been turned upside down, pulverised by the loss of a daughter and sister. It’s gotten into the marrow of how those remaining are to live and relate to each other. A cord binding the family has been snipped. How to salvage the remnants of life after tragedy? It’s the kind that shakes up dynamics and rents the familiar and loving into the aloof and inaccessible.
Mirrors No 3 is most tantalising when it lets the mystery of foggy emotion breathe. Petzold taps a breezy, drifting quality, accompanying Betty and Laura sharing the days. It doesn’t take much effort for them to establish comfort. We feel like both have been waiting for the other to step by. Grace flowers in the friendship and quiet care they nurture. Their first glimpse of each other itself indicates a darting, but critical recognition of something intimate.
As soon as the inevitable melodrama peeks in, some of the edge is taken off. But Petzold isn’t one to indulge petty manipulation. He pulls the strings ever so lightly and yet the effect is piercing. He’s a master at threading everyday life with enigma and reserves of unexpressed, abiding emotion. He wishes for you to sit with his characters, not get trapped in pre-empting the next turn. There’s a natural fluidity at play. The scenes are deftly woven between anticipation and aftermath. Laura’s presence initially discomfits Betty’s family, but slowly goads them towards growth. Warmth and empathy sprouts. Along with his regular DP Hans Fromm, Petzold invokes a stillness see-sawing between peace and perturbation. The world is full of peculiar mercies and consolations, emanating from people we might least expect or wouldn’t even be habituated with otherwise. Kindness can swoop if we stay open to life’s mysterious designs. Mirrors No. 3 reflects a calm magnificence of spirit. As Betty and Laura rekindle each other’s life-force, it forms a humbling witness to possibilities after numbing loss. Christian Petzold’s film is blessed with generosity that’s fast disappearing from today’s world.
