In spite of his last three, present day-set, features, there was something about German auteur Christian Petzold’s work that suited being set in the past. This was connected to the classicism of his approach, and his cinephilia, allowing him to directly inspect and recreate history, as opposed to only capturing its resonance in contemporary times. The “Berlin School” filmmaker’s last feature, Afire [+lee también:
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ficha de la película], was a welcome swerve into Rohmer-esque comedy (coupled with his customary tautness and suspense), but his Cannes Directors’ Fortnight premiere Mirrors No. 3 feels a bit muted by comparison and predictable in its plot diversions, although much of his usual flair is still in evidence.

Mirrors No. 3 – named after an iconic Ravel piano piece – ostensibly takes place in the real world, but one still haunted by odd coincidences and irrational gaps in logic. Regular collaborator Paula Beer is Laura, an accomplished music student, who’s nursing a bit of “heteropessimism”: her boyfriend Jakob’s (Philip Froissant) first on-screen appearance, in a reverse shot, is like a jump scare, and her discomfort with him is apparent as he – also being a music student – tries to badger the more prestigious electronic-music producer who they’re socialising with that day for a collaboration. Laura demands to be taken back home, and they’re tragically involved in a car accident, during which Jakob perishes. Obviously traumatised, she’s tended to by a mysterious older woman named Betty (Barbara Auer), who resides alone in an isolated house by the road and is one of the first to discover the nearby wreckage.

The ease with which Laura integrates into Betty’s domestic lifestyle – helping her paint the front picket gate, perfectly fitting in the old clothes of her daughter, and with a knack for cooking classic German comfort food – is eerie, especially to her husband Richard (Matthias Brandt) and son Max (Enno Trebs), who work together as car mechanics, and whose relationship with Betty you would describe as “affectionately” estranged.

There are baby steps towards explanation and revelation, but instead, the members of this newly united quartet circle one another tentatively, mirroring the behaviours, and social and romantic roles, of one another and less primary figures in the story, whether alive or dead. Minute by minute – combined with the careful arrangement of bodies in the frame, often eschewing more emotive close-up shots – each new detail and piece of information we’re granted creates both plot clarity and further ambiguity. Holding one hand out with Ravel’s musical beauty, and keeping pure narrative comprehensibility in the other, closed tight behind his back – that’s the Petzold way.

If he’s making a political point, the potential high-status background that Laura will assume as a classical piano recitalist, juxtaposed with the family’s proletarian position and their desire to covet her, feels slightly charged given the social polarisation evidenced in Germany’s recent elections, but this is a faint resonance that’s only as relevant as you choose.

As said, it seems churlish to gripe given Mirrors No. 3’s familiar charms, but with this belated first Cannes appearance, there is arguably too much mirroring of what effects he’s achieved more powerfully – and with less risk of cosy sentimentality – several times before.

Mirrors No. 3 is a German production staged by Schramm Film - Koerner Weber Kaiser, in co-production with ZDF and ARTE GEIE. Its international sales are managed by The Match Factory.