This text appeared within the June 4, 2025 version of The Movie Remark Letter, our free weekly publication that includes authentic movie criticism and writing. Join the Letter right here.

(*3*)Mirrors No. 3 (Christian Petzold, 2025)

Christian Petzold has been an everyday on the pageant circuit for 1 / 4 of a century, competing a number of instances in Berlin and Venice, however this yr marked his first look in Cannes. Mirrors No. 3, which screened within the Administrators’ Fortnight part, is the German director’s eleventh theatrical function, his fourth consecutive collaboration with the actress Paula Beer, and his umpteenth riff on his perennial touchstone Vertigo (1958)—which is to say, one other spectral story of hauntings and doublings, rife with echoes of classical cinema (and of Petzold’s different motion pictures), and but very a lot its personal mysterious object.

In Mirrors No. 3, as in Petzold’s 2007 movie Yella, a automobile crash induces a trance state. After surviving an accident within the German countryside that kills her boyfriend, Laura (Beer), a morose piano scholar from Berlin, wanders into the lifetime of an enigmatic lady, Betty (Barbara Auer), who—for causes initially unclear—resides aside from her husband, Richard (Matthias Brandt), and grownup son, Max (Enno Trebs), who work at a close-by auto-repair store. Amid the on a regular basis home routines that emerge from the realignment that brings its 4 characters collectively, the spare, elegant, deceptively easy Mirrors No. 3 locates uncanny fissures and stunning depths of feeling.

On the day of his premiere, I met up with Petzold—who, although recovering from a migraine, was in good spirits—to debate endings, beginnings, and the significance of restore.

Mirrors No. 3 is titled for a bit of music, by Maurice Ravel. How did music issue into your conception of the movie?

The previous few motion pictures I’ve made are about individuals who have misplaced their senses. They’ve forgotten tips on how to scent, to style, to see, to listen to, they usually need to be taught it once more. Cinema likes to see people who find themselves in a course of, not people who find themselves in a state of affairs, and the method of successful again your senses is a topic I’m concerned with. Music in movies—it’s at all times one thing from exterior. It’s from a godlike storyteller who thinks she or he is aware of extra concerning the characters. At this second in my life, I don’t wish to use music as an extradiegetic rating. I wish to see folks taking part in music, listening to music, listening to the sounds of the world, listening to and seeing the wind within the timber. I wish to see them open their minds.

I bear in mind the way you described the movie two years in the past, earlier than you shot it, and watching it, I spotted you had given me a really exact description of how the narrative is ready in movement—the primary quarter-hour or so. I didn’t anticipate it to show into a movie about household, which is a topic you’ve gotten handled earlier than however not just lately.

Yeah, that’s attention-grabbing. You realize Barbara Auer, who performs the mom? She performed the mom 25 years in the past in my movie The State I Am In (2000), and it’s not a coincidence that I considered her because the mom right here. As a result of I’ve a household of my very own, I normally don’t wish to make motion pictures about households. It’s from my biography; it’s too close to. I favor people who find themselves not like me. However once we made Afire (2023), we had scenes with teams of individuals sitting round a desk, a bit bit like in 12 Indignant Males (1957). With a lot of my earlier motion pictures, it’s one or two folks on the desk, shot-countershot. In Afire, I used to be so on this state of affairs of the group: who’s in love with whom, who hates whom, all the things on the similar second. After I was youthful, I didn’t have the abilities to make a scene like this, to work on each side: on the floor and in addition beneath it. Working with this ensemble in Afire gave me the belief to make a film a few household once more.

It’s one thing for cinema—to see folks beneath strain. With the household in The State I Am In, the strain comes from exterior, from the state. Now [with Mirrors No. 3], the strain on this household comes from inside. That is one thing completely totally different. I feel I wanted 25 years to consider how I may make a film about this. I may have advised you the entire story in New York two years in the past, however I didn’t know on the time tips on how to understand it.

So that you figured it out within the course of of creating it? I heard you reshot the ending.

This was the primary time in my life that I did that, and it was six months after we shot the ultimate scene. Within the authentic ending, the household is sitting on the porch, and abruptly they discover that Paula Beer’s character is again, standing on the fence, along with her baggage. The final sentence of the script was, “She opens the gate and intrudes into the lifetime of the household.” I appreciated this sentence a lot!

With my editor, Bettina Böhler, I watched the scene, and we knew one thing was completely unsuitable—it was an enormous, massive mistake. We are able to’t inform a narrative, 90 minutes of somebody in search of herself, after which in the long run, she’s only a daughter! I had a melancholy for 2 weeks. I ended enhancing; I assumed it was the worst film I’d ever made in my life. A bit of little bit of unfavorable narcissism.

In cinema, you’ve gotten a collective intelligence, and that’s why it’s the very best artwork on the planet. From the discussions I had with Paula Beer and Enno Trebs, in addition they advised me, “That’s not the ultimate scene.” Then Bettina stated, “Okay, let’s take all this shit out, and use a picture of Paula in her house.” At that second, I knew what this film was about. It’s a few household that learns to stay with trauma, and with the absence of their suicidal daughter. However that was not in my thoughts in the course of the writing, as a result of literature is totally totally different from cinema. In literature, you’ve gotten a romantic last sentence, and you might be proud. As a author, you may lie 24 hours a day. Cinema is aware of if you begin mendacity.

To show from the ending to the start, I’m inquisitive about how Laura, Paula’s character, is established. You get a way that each one 4 characters are coping with some type of melancholy. The context turns into clear for the three members of the family, however by no means for Laura. 

I feel the drugs I took in opposition to the headache—

It’s kicking in?

It’s working now, like cocaine [laughs]. You realize, I reduce out the opening scenes, too.

Oh actually? What was the opening?

It gave the character of Laura extra biography. We see her at college. She will’t play piano anymore. All this stuff, about 5 or seven minutes, I reduce out, and determined to start out along with her by the river. Paula appreciated it, however she requested me why. And I stated to her, “In Alice in Wonderland, you don’t know something about Alice.” This was essential. To have somebody who shouldn’t be okay, however she will get a biography later, from the story, from the contact with the household, and never from one thing I give her, like baggage. Paula appreciated this new begin of the film, as a result of it was additionally like we have been taking one thing from Undine (2020). She’s somebody from the waters, and she or he needs to stay on our earth.

So it’s as if the actors are themselves carrying these ghostly traces from their different roles. 

Sure, like Barbara, who was the mom in The State I Am In. And Matthias Brandt, who performed the editor in Afire—an editor is somebody who’s repairing issues, and right here he’s repairing vehicles. This was the opposite essential topic for me. This can be a unhealthy sentence, however I’ll say it anyway: we’re dwelling in a capitalistic world [laughs], and all the things that’s damaged, we throw away. To restore issues, you want respect for what you wish to restore. You could perceive the engine, the automobile, the soul, and the thoughts, too. While you see outdated westerns, the characters can restore something!

I bear in mind when my daughter was 5 and she or he couldn’t sleep one night time, we watched a James Bond film on TV. After 20 minutes, she stated to me, “I really like James Bond motion pictures. I wish to see extra of them.” And I stated, “Why?” And he or she stated, “As a result of they will destroy all the things and don’t need to restore it” [laughs]. As a result of she at all times needed to restore the issues she broke in her room. So that is one thing I’m concerned with: how folks attempt to begin to restore issues once more.

Together with cinema?

Sure. Within the cinema world, within the final many years, there’s a want for tabula rasa. As a result of we are able to’t restore all this shit, we now have to destroy it. We now have so many dystopian motion pictures the place the world is clear once more. This can be a fascistic imaginative and prescient, to wash all the things, just like the Berlin structure of Albert Speer. I feel we now have to restore issues once more, look once more at what’s damaged. Two days in the past, I noticed a documentary with Jean-Luc Godard speaking to Marguerite Duras, they usually have been speaking about deconstruction: you must deconstruct the world. Possibly on the finish of the ’60s, however now, no, we now have to reconstruct.

It’s usually stated that almost all of your movies are, in some sense, ghost tales. Right here there are moments that recommend fairy tales, and there are additionally these occasional drifts into the language of horror motion pictures. I ponder if that has to do with the return to the household.

Effectively, 99 p.c of horror comes out of households [laughs]! There’s a fairy story by the Brothers Grimm, “The Shroud.” It’s a few mom, and she or he’s ready for her lifeless son, who comes every night and sits there. It’s a extremely arduous story, yeah? After three or 4 nights, the son says, “Mom, you must cease crying. I wish to go to heaven. Nevertheless it’s not attainable as a result of your crying holds me again.” And so the mom stops.

I really like this story, as a result of it’s additionally like an schooling. All these tales are like schooling. You need to say, “It’s okay. They’re lifeless.” And Betty, on this film, she will’t do that. Within the scene the place the husband and son see this additional plate on the eating desk, they assume she is again in her trauma, after which they hear somebody, a noise within the kitchen. At this second, they imagine in ghosts.

We began by speaking about music. I needed to finish by asking about using the Frankie Valli and the 4 Seasons music “The Evening.”

I heard it on this Portuguese film.

The Tsugua Diaries (2021), by Miguel Gomes and Maureen Fazendeiro. The movie truly premiered right here in Cannes, additionally within the Administrators’ Fortnight.

Oh actually? I appreciated this music a lot. That film is ready throughout COVID-19 confinement, so it’s in a manner additionally a film a few group of people who find themselves imprisoned. For 3 minutes, the music opens a window to a greater life.

I like that in your movie, we’re watching the characters as they hearken to the music.

The actors have their script, they’ve their characters, they’ve their traces. However for this second, I stated to them, “We’ll make a quite simple factor. You’re simply listening to music, and we’re filming you with two cameras.” And so they have been afraid, as a result of they’d no traces, they’d no id. However I like these moments when they’re misplaced. Once they begin laughing within the scene, they aren’t [the characters] Laura and Max. They’re [the actors] Paula and Enno. This breaking provides them freedom for a second. And I used the identical music for the tip credit, to remind us of this second of freedom.

There’s one other factor I borrowed on this movie. Within the last scene, after they’re consuming eggs on the porch, it’s from The Deer Hunter (1978), the place they’re additionally consuming eggs, they usually’re singing the American hymn [“God Bless America”].

Did you present your actors any movies earlier than capturing? I do know you usually try this.

Only one this time: The Son’s Room (2001) by Nanni Moretti. Within the last scene of that movie, after the dad and mom convey the girlfriend of their lifeless son to the border of Italy and France, they’re on the seaside, and all people’s alone and collectively on the similar time. It’s a second that has at all times stayed with me. That scene was truly shot in Menton, not removed from the place we are actually.

Dennis Lim is the creative director of the New York Movie Competition and the writer of Story of Cinema (2022) and David Lynch: The Man from One other Place (2015).