Christian Petzold | "Miroirs No. 3": A Summer's Day Dream

No German director captures summer in Brandenburg as beautifully as Christian Petzold . He and his regular cinematographer, Hans Fromm, took their inspiration from their French colleague, Éric Rohmer. Anyone who has ever cycled through the Uckermark region to the lake on a rickety bicycle will lose themselves in summery reveries at the sight of Paula Beer—Petzold's ethereal muse since "Transit"—cycling through the landscape in " Red Sky ."

But in the final part of his trilogy, which began with " Undine ," inspired by the elemental spirits of Romanticism, you have to be a little patient before you see Beer—this time in the role of music student Laura—cycling around again in a light summer dress.

At first, Laura seems to be considering taking her own life. Petzold, a cinematic veteran, lets the viewer sense this by first showing Laura standing on a motorway bridge, looking down, then drawing her to the river. She gazes at the water, lost in thought—here, the film connects with Undine, previously portrayed by Beer—then looks up and notices a stand-up paddleboarder, who passes her like a ferryman trying to lure her into the realm of the dead. And the Petzold fan fidgets like a fish on a hook, wanting to learn more about this sad woman.

Then a kind of modern-day witch enters the picture—played subtly by Barbara Auer. Twice, Laura's gaze captivates her as she drives past her in her boyfriend's red convertible in the middle of nowhere in Brandenburg. Very close to her house, Laura's boyfriend then has a car accident in which he dies, while Laura miraculously survives—almost unscathed.

"I should be sad, but I'm not," she would later say—a sign of how disconnected she felt. Betty, the mysterious woman, promptly takes the suicidal Laura into her gingerbread house.

Every morning she brings her breakfast in bed, gives her amazingly suitable clothes, lets her help around the house and garden – both of them unspokenly accept an arrangement to give each other a little support.

Soon, they're painting the black fence white together—one can't help but immediately think of the immaculate garden fence at the beginning of "Blue Velvet." While no one notices a severed ear in the grass, two men later appear in this deceptive idyll—Betty's husband Richard (Matthias Brandt) and her adult son Max (Enno Trebs). They were also part of the ensemble in Petzold's Silver Bear-winning film "Red Sky."

Father and son currently live in their auto repair shop; their business seems to primarily consist of deactivating the navigation systems of luxury cars for shady customers. Everyone in this film seems to have somehow lost their way—another classic fairytale motif. This is also reflected in the eponymous piano cycle "Miroirs No. 3" by Maurice Ravel, subtitled "Une barque sur l'océan" ("A Boat on the Ocean"), which at least conjures up a life-saving barge for life's shipwrecked victims.

Soon, Max and Richard—apparently for the first time in a long time—accept Betty's invitation to dinner. Laura emerges from the kitchen like a specter and serves the family her favorite dish, a magnificent scene in which the unspoken secret threatens to swallow the family like the mouth of hell.

But father and son, visibly alarmed that a stranger has apparently taken the place of their lost daughter and sister, hold back.

Instead, these men, who can repair anything but have so far been unable to repair their family, begin to fix numerous things in the house – not least the bicycle with the broken seat post, so that Laura can finally cycle through the late summer in Brandenburg again.

But the traumatized woman's escape into a deceptive idyll cannot last. First, the dishwasher explodes quite impressively, then Max states the obvious: that Laura has taken the place of her deceased sister.

Laura finally realizes that everyone must wake up from the summer dream and try to find their way back to life.

Even if the minimalist, somewhat overly explicit film at first glance seems like a finger exercise by the Berlin director with his unmistakable style, and Petzold's cinematic experimental setups aren't for everyone, this film unfolds its trademark Petzold magic even days after the cinematic viewing. The characters continue to accompany the open-minded viewer through their daydreams, and upon rewatching, the film's finely conceived content becomes increasingly apparent. Not to mention the miraculously preserved summer feeling full of quiet hope that can carry you through the colder days to come.

"Miroirs No. 3": Germany 2025. Directed and written by Christian Petzold. Starring: Paula Beer, Barbara Auer, Matthias Brandt, and Enno Trebs. 86 minutes. Theatrical release: September 18.