Christian Petzold – »Miroirs No. 3 «: A summer day dream

No German director captures the summer in Brandenburg as wonderful as Christian Petzold. He and his regular cameraman Hans Fromm viewed this with their French colleague Éric Rohmer. Anyone who has cycled through the Uckermark to the lake with a rickety bike will lose themselves in summer dreams at the sight of Paula Beer – Petzold’s essential musical musical musical Muse, which was already cycling in “Red Heaven”.

But in the last part of his trilogy, which was started with “Undine” by the elementary leaders of the romanticism, you have to spend a little patience before you see Beer – this time in the role of music student Laura – again cycling through the area in the airy summer dress.

At first Laura apparently thinks of taking life. This lets the Petzold washed with all cinematic water feel the viewer by first showing how Laura stands on a motorway bridge and looks down, then she draws them to the river. She looks at the water-here the film connects to the Undine, which was previously embodied by Beer-then looks up and perceives a stand-up paddler, he passes past her like a ferryman who wants to lure her into the realm of the dead. And the Petzold fan fidgets like a fish on his fishing rod, wants to learn more about this sad woman.

Then a kind of modern witch is on the scene – withdrawn embodied by Barbara Auer. Laura’s gaze is captivating twice when she never passes her in the red convertible in her friend in her friend in Brandenburg. Near her house, Laura’s friend builds a car accident where he dies, while Laura survives as if through a miracle – almost intact.

“I should be sad, but it’s not me,” she will say later – signs for how she feels split -up. Betty, the mysterious woman, absorbs Laura, tired of life in her crispy house.

Every morning she brings her breakfast to the bed, gives her astonishingly suitable to put on, lets her help in the house and garden – both accept an arrangement unspoken to give each other a little support.

Soon they will remove the black fence together – you can’t immediately think of the flawless garden fence at the beginning of “Blue Velvet”. Nobody then discovers a cut -off ear in the grass, but later two men appear in this deceptive idyll – Betty’s husband Richard (Matthias Brandt) and the adult son Max (Enno Trebs). They were already part of the ensemble with the silver bear “Red Heaven” with the silver bear.

Father and son currently live in their car workshop, their business seems primarily to consist in deactivating the navigation systems of their luxury slides for semi -silk customers. Everyone in this film somehow seems to have come off the way – another classic fairytale motif. This is also reflected by the title -giving piano cycle »Miroirs No. 3 «by Maurice Ravel with the subtitle” Une Barque Sur L’Océan “(” A Bark on the Ocean “), who at least conjures up a saving barge for the shipwrecked life in front of the inner eye.

Max and Richard will soon follow an invitation in Bettys to eat for the first time – obviously for a long time. Laura appears out of the kitchen like a bustle specter and serves the family her body dish, a great scene in which the unspoken secret threatens to devour the family like a hell.

But father and son, visibly alerted that a stranger obviously took the place of the lost daughter and sister, hold back.

Instead, these men, who can repair everything, have only been able to repair their family, to fix their family, to judge numerous things in the house – not least the bike with the broken saddle rod, so that Laura can finally cycle through the Brandenburg late summer.

But the escape of the traumatized into a deceptive idyll cannot be permanent. First the dishwasher explodes quite impressively, then Max, who speaks the obvious: that Laura took the place of the late sister.

Laura finally realizes that everyone has to wake up from the summer day dream and try to get back into life.

Even if the minimalist, somewhat too clear film at first glance looks like a finger exercise by the Berlin director with the distinctive handwriting and Petzold’s cinematic experimental arrangements are not for everyone: This film still unfolds his magic, which is typical of Petzold. The characters accompany the open -minded viewer even through daydreaming, and when viewing again, it is more and more revealed how fine the film is. Not to mention the miracle feeling that is miraculously preserved in a miraculous way, which can wear a colder days coming up.

»Miroirs No. 3 «: Germany 2025. Director and book: Christian Petzold. With: Paula Beer, Barbara Auer, Matthias Brandt, Enno Trebs. 86 min. September 18th.