Melodrama is a constantly sub-genre appreciated by cinephiles. Historically, filmmakers like Douglas Sirk, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and Pedro Almodovar earned admiration from the lovers of the seventh art, predominantly because their work approaches the structures of the melodramatic conventions. In this sense, another contemporary filmmaker admired for his oeuvre in the melodrama is Christian Petzold, the director of Barbara, Phoenix, and Afire. Despite a limited circuit on commercial screens, the German author is a constant presence at festivals worldwide, usually premiering his films at the Berlinale. Hence, each of his new films carries the genuine curiosity of his few, but passionate fans. They await the director’s partnership with talented actors, in a period of his career that includes Nina Hoss and, recently, Paula Beer. Thus, Miroirs No. 3, his new film, brought with it an expectation, particularly after the release of Afire in 2023, one of the year’s best releases.
In his new work, Petzold narrates the story of Laura (Paula Beer), a young woman studying classical piano at a university in Berlin. On a day, despite her unwillingness to travel, she commutes to a village with her boyfriend, a young musician who is meeting with a producer on a boat. However, she decides to leave; her boyfriend drives her to a train station, yet they suffer a terrible accident, and he hits his head on a rock, and perishes. Laura survives and decides to stay with a woman who lives in the house near the road, Betty (Barbara Auer), who is attempting to reconstruct her life after a personal tragedy. Hence, the two women support each other during traumatic times, looking forward to the emotional bond that will help them overcome their personal tragedies.
As in his other works, more specifically Afire, the director portrays the simple actions of daily life. Even after a life-threatening event, Laura focuses on fixing Betty’s weed garden or painting alongside her the house’s neglected fence. The natural approach to the mundane is present here, reminiscent of the other films in the director’s filmography. Yet, despite setting the story in a contemporary timeline, Phoenix focuses on post-World War II events, and the director avoids modern gadgets to tell its story. Even though Betty’s son and husband have a garage full of modern BMWs and Mercedes, the protagonist does not use technology, especially a cellphone. The post-accident is a retreat to her, a manner of balancing her personal life again after the death of a loved one.
Like other melodramatic stories, primarily in literature, the characters’ emotional bond is born of pain, the wounds that remain open in each other’s psyches. Betty comes through the post-traumatic consequences of losing a child and observing the world around her collapse entirely. Thus, Laura is the lost child returning home, even though the Berlin student is unaware of that. Consequently, the supporting characters consider her a threat to the bygone individual, a substitute for the one who is gone. Likewise, her character in Afire, Paula Beer, holds an enigmatic charisma, an aura of the woman she is portraying that reveals little to the audience. Even so, the omission in the earlier work led to a gut-wrenching reveal, reorganizing the film’s dramatic hierarchy. In this sense, Laura seems a one-dimensional character, lacking any deeper resemblance to her construction beyond the bikeriding trait, which is also present in her past collaboration with Petzold.
Furthermore, the new production by a German master feels underwhelming, largely because of the melodrama’s lackluster construction. There is no more efficient punchline to the dramatic confrontation than the notion of obsession, but its brevity undermines it, resulting in an incomplete arc. In that regard, the significance of its title, which borrows from Maurice Ravel’s Miroirs, a five-movement suite for solo piano. The movement No. 3, which Petzold refers to, is titled Une Barque sur l’océan (A Boat on the Ocean), which narrates the ebb and flow of the sea. In the context of the film, every event happens because Laura decides not to go to the boat on the ocean, leading to the tragic car crash, which resembles another French masterpiece, Jean-Luc Godard’s The Contempt. Hence, the film is about the opposite of the piano suite, which holds a fascinating proposition to the melodrama structure, but it is not effective as it unravels.
Despite the anticipation for a new Petzold, particularly because he departed from the usual premiere at the Berlinale and participation in the Quinzaine des Cineastes in Cannes, Miroirs No.3 feels like a minor work in his catalogue. It is constructed solidly and features a visually appealing design in its construction. However, the director’s most recognizable trait, his melodramatic style, is not as sharp as in his earlier works, and he delivers a not-so-inspired performance with his new muse, Paula Beer.
Miroirs No.3 recently played at the Toronto International Film Festival.
Learn more about the film at the IMDB site for the title.
