Mirrors No. 3

A drama set in Germany. Laura is a piano student. She goes out of the city for a weekend with her boyfriend; the trip goes badly and she wants to go back. They do not reach the station. There is an accident. Laura survives. A woman who lives near the site takes her in. Betty looks after her; she cooks, prepares a room and wants her to stay. Something in the house is off. Betty's husband and son live apart, the family has broken up, and everyone quietly accepts Laura being there. The reason comes slowly: there is a daughter in this house who died, and Laura settles into the space she left. Nobody names it. What the film is interested in is grief: not erasing the past but putting it into a shape that can be carried. The narrative does not explain that, it shows it through daily work; a table laid, a job in the garden, an ordinary afternoon spent together. The title comes from the third movement of Maurice Ravel's five-part piano suite, and that piece is played at the end. Paula Beer plays Laura, in her fourth film with the director. Barbara Auer, Matthias Brandt and Enno Trebs are in the cast. Christian Petzold directed. The film was shown in the Directors' Fortnight at Cannes. Who it is for: anyone who likes quiet German cinema and narratives that do not explain. Who it is not for: anyone who wants answers; the film leaves a great deal unsaid, and means to.