Miroirs No. 3

Paula Beer

Christian Petzold's Miroirs No. 3 is another rewarding and disquieting expansion of the German writer/ director's oeuvre. At 86 minutes, it is a terse yarn with crisp and telling editing by Bettina Böhler. The film centers on Laura (Paula Beer), a depressed music student who we learn is studying in Berlin. Traveling through the countryside, displayed in the film in all its autumn finery, Laura and her boyfriend experience a horrible auto accident and the boyfriend is killed. Dazed after the crash, Laura is taken in by a seemingly kind older woman named Betty (Barbara Auer). However, it soon seems that Betty is the one in need of support.

I must warn the reader that I will now spoil the plot. Petzold does so himself, following Hitchcock's dictum that the audience will experience the thrill of anticipation if the audience knows a ticking time bomb is about to explode rather than just detonating a bomb without warning. At one point early in the proceedings, Betty calls Laura "Yelena", a slip of the tongue that told me and I'm sure many other viewers that Betty is using Laura as a daughter substitute. We soon meet Betty's husband and son who seem partially estranged from her. They both operate a slightly shady garage. Not much really happens except for unhealthy family dynamics until the son blurts out the truth about Yelena. There is a twisted sense of healing achieved for all concerned. Laura starts out being treated like a child by Betty who tucks Laura in like a toddler. When she ultimately learns the truth about Yelena, she acts outs like a teen. She ditches Yelena's wardrobe which Betty had given her and dons again the psycho grungy duck sweater she wore at the film's beginning. She leaves her temporary nest, as all children must do.  

I feel Miroirs No. 3 is an autumnal and ironic comedy, like Hitchcock's The Trouble with Harry. This explains Beer's Mona Lisa smile in the final shot. In this bourgeois satire, the characters are too terse to communicate. The males tinker with their gadgets while the females have at least the balm of culture in the form of painting and music. There is no score per se, but this heightens our awareness of the film's use of songs. They range from Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons to Ravel, part of whose piano suite gives the film its title. The music expresses what the characters feel more that the feeble words they provide for one another. In some respects, this mirrors the formal intent of Petzold. This film is not one of his magnum opus masterpieces (which include Barbara, Phoenix, and Undine), but it is a first class étude. All the actors are superb and Hans Fromm's cinematography is as striking and unsettling as a Courbet.                       

Sirat

Sergei Lopez

I was a tiny bit disappointed by Oliver Laxe's Sirāt. The Galician filmmaker still must be considered a comer at the age of 44, but I prefer his previous features, Fire Will Come and The Settlers. Sirāt, set entirely in the deserts and mountain ranges of Morocco, represents an opening up in terms of scope in the director's work, but at the loss of characterization. The film's slim plot concerns an aging Spaniard named Luis (Sergei López) who is searching the arid country with his prepubescent son, Esteban, in tow searching for Esteban's sister. They attend a rave and pass out leaflets with her picture. They attach themselves to a caravan of two buses hoping to find her at the next rave. The duo are not prepared for a cross country trip across Morocco and it is only with the assistance of the ravers that they are able to survive. Luis and Esteban ultimately bond with the motley crew and the boy has his hair braided and shaved to mark the moment.

Laxe's primary thematic concern has been the clash of cultures, perhaps not surprising coming from a Galician, and Sirāt is no exception. However, I found the motivations of his characters to be awfully thin in this picture. Part of the reason is that Laxe has filled his supporting cast with non-actors who seem to have been hired more for their appearance than their ability to project a character. Mr. López has extensive and impressive credits, including Pan's Labyrinth and Happy as Lazaro, but Luis is too taciturn a character to explain his back story or motivation. I do suppose it is realistic for the other characters not to chatter about themselves since they are zonked out all the time on different herbs and spices. It is difficult to find words when in the throes of ecstasy.  

However, Laxe starts bumping off his characters halfway through the film and I was surprised how little I cared. No spoilers, but it began to feel random to me. Luis' unarticulated mission ultimately feels foolhardy and the title, which mean "path", becomes ironic. The film does capture an aura of pre-apocalyptic jitters. It looks great and sounds great, but it never struck a tragic chord with me. Laxe, though, has the technical ability to make a great film and, hopefully, one day he will.

Une affaire de femmes

Marie Trintignant and Isabelle Huppert

Claude Chabrol's Une affaire de femmes, which was released in the US in 1990 under the unsatisfactory title Story of Women, is set in Cherbourg under the Nazi occupation. It focuses on a lower class woman named Marie Latour (Isabelle Huppert) who finds her calling as an abortionist after taking it up to make ends meet. The film was based on a novel by Francis Szpiner who is better known in France for his careers in politics and law. Marie Latour is based on the real life Marie-Louise Giraud who was guillotined in 1943. In the film, Marie is saddled with a traumatized husband, Paul (François Cluzet) who returns from a POW camp after the first reel to reunite with Marie and their two small children. Marie wants nothing more to do with her quietly seething husband and takes up with a young wheeler-dealer named Lucien (the dashing Nils Tavernier) who has profited by collaborating with the Nazis.

Part of the reason I think Une affaire de femmes is second tier Chabrol is its predictability. As soon as scorned Paul learns that Marie has taken a swanky lover, we know he will rat on his wife to the authorities. Paul never seems truly damaged, just sullen and frustrated because the talented Mr. Cluzet is busy tamping down his natural charisma. I also don't completely buy Ms. Huppert as a semi-literate. A bigger problem is the film's shaky point of view. During the course of the film, we learn that the tale is being told later in life by Marie and Paul's son, Pierrot. However, Chabrol doesn't really adhere to Pierrot's perspective, so that reveal comes off as clumsily as the film's one onscreen shooting. On the plus side, Marie's relationships with the women she encounters who need her services are superbly and empathically rendered. Best of all is Marie Trintignant as Lulu who befriends Marie and mentors her on expanding her client base. A seaside tracking shot of the two conversing is the highlight of the film.

Roger Ebert suggested that Ms. Huppert was the perfect performer for Chabrol and I concur. Whenever Chabrol needs her to show what Marie is thinking or feeling in the film, Ms. Huppert is able to make it plain to the viewer without punctuating the proceedings with unrealistic demonstrativeness. Marie is the only multi-dimensional character in the film and Huppert is able to range across a wide spectrum in displaying both her character's grasping materialism and lyrical love of music. It is a commanding performance and was duly rewarded with the Best Actress award at the Venice Film Festival in 1988. She has gone on to prove and continue proving that she is the premier film actress of her generation. Une affaire de femmes may not be one of Claude Chabrol's best films, nor one of his worst, but it does contain one of Isabelle Huppert's best performances.