AceShowbiz - Miroirs No. 3, the latest film by Christian Petzold, opens with moments that feel oddly out of place within its bright, serene setting. The story begins with Laura, a music student in Berlin played by Paula Beer, encountering eerie figures who hint at the tragedy to come. One such figure is a paddleboarder dressed in black, silently observing her by a canal. Soon after, Laura notices a woman in mourning attire standing outside her home during a drive through the countryside with her boyfriend Jakob, played by Philip Froissant, and his friends.

This ominous tone quickly materializes when a car accident claims Jakob’s life, leaving Laura surprisingly unharmed despite the overturned vehicle. The film’s opening evokes the eerie mood of the cult classic Carnival of Souls, where the survivor of a crash is revealed to be dead. However, Miroirs No. 3 moves in a different direction, unfolding a narrative that is less about horror and more about the haunting nature of grief and denial.

After the crash, Laura is approached by the mourning woman, Betty, portrayed by Barbara Auer. Betty’s immediate and almost instinctive offer to let Laura stay at her home rather than go to the hospital introduces an unsettling dynamic. Laura, a stranger to Betty, accepts this invitation, stepping into a household shadowed by loss. Betty’s actions—preparing a bed, laying out cut fruit and water—suggest a maternal kindness, yet she treats Laura as if she were someone else, occasionally calling her "Yelena" and providing clothes that belonged to her deceased daughter.

Betty’s family, including her husband Richard (played by Matthias Brandt) and son Max (played by Enno Trebs), are clearly mourning a significant loss. This grief permeates the household, yet the film’s true fascination lies in how Laura’s presence complicates and, in some ways, soothes this sorrow. By assuming the role of the absent daughter, Laura becomes enveloped in the family’s shared but unspoken fantasy, a surrogate who fills the void left behind.

The film delicately portrays this pretense not as deception but as a form of collective healing. Laura’s stay in Betty’s home is depicted with intimate, almost tender moments—a cozy rain-soaked night, a morning suffused with sunlight. Betty’s storytelling, recalling Tom Sawyer’s fence-painting trick, evokes a maternal warmth, while her proud display of the herb garden adds a quiet magic to the narrative. Although Betty is no witch, her sense of wonder and hope imbues the scenes with a fairy-tale quality that contrasts with the underlying tragedy.

The family’s hesitant acceptance of Laura culminates in a dinner where Richard and Max meet her for the first time. Their stunned reactions mirror the disbelief of witnessing a resurrection—an uncanny but healing event that challenges their grief. Miroirs No. 3 does not offer easy answers, instead presenting grief as a state of suspended reality, a staycation from pain where characters quietly negotiate their emotions through shared illusions.

While the film does not reach the heights of Petzold’s acclaimed postwar masterpiece Phoenix, which similarly deals with identity and survival, it captivates with its subtle exploration of loss and recovery. The unsettling atmosphere hinges on the characters’ unspoken understanding that their current reality is fragile and perhaps illusory. This shared silence allows them to engage in a therapeutic performance that helps Laura confront her own unhappiness while aiding the bereaved family’s journey toward healing.

Laura is not truly Yelena, Betty’s daughter, but by inhabiting Yelena’s life, she provides the family a way to process their grief. The idyllic life she temporarily steps into—complete with plum cake on the veranda and bicycle rides through the village—serves as a gentle balm. Through this quiet act of role-playing, Laura inspires Betty, Richard, and Max to begin moving beyond their sorrow.

As the story progresses, the characters gradually awaken from their shared trance, emerging from the haze of denial and loss. By the film’s end, they are all, in some unexpected way, better equipped to face the realities that had previously overwhelmed them. Miroirs No. 3 is a small but affecting film, one that uses its dreamlike narrative to examine how grief can transform into a temporary refuge—a stay in someone else’s life that offers a chance to heal.