Mirrors No. 3 2026 Movie Review
I saw this film at the 2026 Palm Springs IFF. The blurb about the movie indicated that it was very Alfred Hitchcockian in nature. Since I’m a big fan of Hitchcock movies, it attracted my attention. The film was directed by Christian Petzold. I had seen a previous film he made, Barbara, featuring the great Nina Hoss. The combination of the two aspects of the film drew me into the theater.
What a disappointment. The film, made in Germany, stars Paula Beer as Laura who is a music student. The beginning of the film gives you the idea that she is very troubled, perhaps suicidal. She is standing on a river bank looking despondent and seems likely to jump. We next see her in a car with her boyfriend and another couple who are headed to a boating outing. When they arrive, she again looks troubled and asks her boyfriend to take her home. Surprisingly, her angst at the beginning of the film disappears never to return.
Her boyfriend drives her to the train station so she can go home but along the way, they get into a serious car accident where he is killed and she is thrown from the car largely unhurt. The accident is near a country house where a woman, Betty, asks her if she wants to stay a few days to recover. Betty is acting strangely. Ok, this starts to get mysterious. She lives alone but her husband and son who run an automotive shop live nearby apart from her. You feel that some kind of incident has occurred to keep them apart, some kind of loss. Laura needs clothes and Betty happens to have some that fit. She also implores Laura to stay longer. You start to get the idea of what has happened. Eventually the son tells Laura what the story is and she is picked up by her father and taken home.
Not much more happens in the film. It gets its title from Ravel’s piano suite Miroirs which Laura plays at the end. Although Beer is excellent, I can’t recommend it; the loss context is too obvious and there is very little suspense.
