Parky At the Pictures (17/4/2026)

(Reviews of Miroirs No.3; Diamanti; and Kinaestheria)

MIROIRS No.3.

Taking its title from a piano piece by Maurice Ravel, Christian Petzold's Miroirs No.3 is the latest of the Berlin School director's films to be set against the backdrop of a stifling summer. Unlike The State I Am In (2000), Jerichow (2008), Barbara (2012), and Afire (2023), however, the twist in the tale is not so closely guarded, with the result that, for all the excellence of the acting and craft contributions, this cine-novella often feels like a minor outing from a master of mood, mystery, and malaise.

Piano student Laura (Paula Beer) stands on an autobahn flyover and gazes down into the river below. Roused from her reverie after watching a man punt past, she returns home to find boyfriend Jakob (Philip Froissant) in a state of agitation, as she is late for the start of a sailing weekend with a producer named Roger (Marcel Heuperman) and his partner. Debbi (Victoire Laly). She mumbles something about losing her bag, but Jakob reminds her that he needs to make a good impression on Roger and he has to coax Laura into joining the conversation, as they drive through the Brandenburg countryside in a shiny red sportscar. When they pass a woman painting the white picket fence of her cottage, Laura looks round and she sees her again after she asks to go home and Roger tosses Jakob the car keys to drive her to the station. He had almost run into the woman while grumbling at Laura, but he remains distracted and is killed when the car turns on its side and Betty (Barbara Auer) rushes to the couple's aid.

Jakob is killed outright, but Laura has been thrown clear and Betty helps her back to the cottage. Refusing to go to hospital, Laura asks to stay until she recovers and Betty assures the attending cop and paramedic that she has room for a guest. She puts Laura to bed and sits with her, as it rains during the evening. When Laura wakes, she nibbles at a snack left on the bedside table and she finds a coffee waiting for her in the morning, along with some clean clothes. Not seeming to notice that Betty calls her `Yelena', Laura asks if she can help paint the fence and listens contentedly, as Betty tells her how Tom Sawyer had tricked some neighbours into painting a fence for him.

Betty says nothing when Laura comes out in a red Babybel t-shirt and pops on an overshirt to begin painting. A couple of elderly cyclists stop on seeing Laura and Betty chides them for gawking. She also reminds Laura that Jakob's death was not her fault and they hug. The pair also exchange glances, when Laura looks through the bedroom window while getting ready for bed and sees Betty standing by the fence. She rides on the back of her bicycle when they go shopping in the village and Betty is taken aback when Laura offers to cook Koenigsburg dumplings as a thank you.

These happen to be the favourites of her husband, Richard (Matthias Brandt), and son, Max (Enno Trebs), who live at the garage they have opened together. When Betty calls to invite them to supper Richard is concerned that she has taken in a stranger and has stopped taking her pills. They are stunned into silence when Laura appears and it's only after they've eaten that Richard explains that it's a long time since they last sat down together as a family. He offers to fix the dripping kitchen tap, while Max repairs the dishwasher. Betty reprimands them for their boorish behaviour during the meal and asks Richard to get the piano tuned and mend Yelena's bike. Driving home without a word, father and son clearly know what the other is thinking about the situation.

The next day, Max comes looking for Richard and learns he's picking plums with Betty. He asks Laura if tending the flower beds is like therapy and she agrees it is. Richard asks Max to take his sister's bike in the truck, so he can adjust it for Laura. As he works, a customer arrives and Laura is curious about the whispering before the man and woman drive off in separate cars. She inquires whether they are engaged in any illegal activity and he smiles because they are merely jamming the GPS for the clien, who doesn't want the manufacturer tracking the vehicle. Richard returns and tells Max to avoid the crash site when he cycles Laura home, but she goes on alone after he takes a tumble and is amused when she invites him for plum cake the following day. On her return, Betty tells Laura that she's glad she's there.

While they argue over the pastry on the verandah, some neighbours stop to snoop. Betty feels flustered and asks Laura to play the piano. She chooses Frédéric Chopin's `Prelude, Op. 28, No.4' from the sheet music and the trio listen uneasily. Max makes his excuses to go, leaving Laura to stack to dishwasher, while Richard and Betty go for a stoll. The machine explodes and Laura cycles to the garage to find Max. He is working and she asks him to play the song he was listening to when she arrived. Over a beer, they smile to Frankie Valli's `The Night' before Richard drives up and sends Laura home to look after Betty because the dishwasher incident has shaken her up. He refuses to let Max go with her, however, and he sulks, as she cycles away.

While doing the dishes at the sink, Betty asks Laura if she'd like to come to Berlin with her and Richard. Perhaps, she could pick up a few belongings while they buy a new dishwasher. Although she declines, Laura asks to stay because she likes the house and Betty tells her she can remain as long as she likes. Having watched Richard and Betty leave the next morning, Laura cycles over to the garage to see Max. He says there's something important he has to tell her and she can see he's feeling troubled and goes to put a hand on his shoulder. However, he pushes her away and her nose starts to bleed when she falls over. Rushing to her bike, she starts to cycle away, only for Max to call after her that she cannot replace the sister who committed suicide. Laura stops and looks round in surprise, when he shouts that his parents are sick because of what's going on and she snaps back that they are all sick.

Max phones his parents and they all come to the house. Betty knocks on the bedroom door and tries to explain and apologise. But Laura tells her to go away and throws a shoe at the door. Her father arrives to collect her and she barges out to the car without another word, leaving Betty to collapse on the drive. Richard puts her to bed in the camp bed she had been using in the front room and makes her some soup. But she just wants to sleep, while Max puts Yelena's bike back in the shed. Although she agrees to give her daughter's clothes away and have her room redecorated, Betty is still worried about Laura and Max disguises himself to record her on the university campus. He says she looked fine. but Betty senses there's something wrong.

Time passes and the family spend more time together. Betty brings lunch to the garage one day and tells Richard and Max that they are going to Laura's final recital. They object, but they watch, as she plays `Une barque sur l'océan' from Ravel's `Miroirs No.3'. Back home, Betty starts to cook for her boys, while Laura returns to her flat and a quiet smile plays over her lips.

Echoes of the Vertigo-like Phoenix (2014) flit around this teasing and sometime implausible drama, which depends heavily on the audience buying into the fact that Laura is so traumatised by the events leading up to Jakob's fatal car crash that she fails to realise what is readily evident to everybody else. She tells Max that she they weren't a proper couple and that she's not particularly sad he's dead. But this is as much of an insight into her psyche as Petzold and Beer are willing to give. She may well be too shaken to notice the numerous clues indicating that Betty is mourning her lost daughter or maybe she's simply playing along so that she doesn't have to answer a lot of awkward questions about the state of her relationship with Jakob and what happened in the run-up to the crash. The opening sequence suggests that she's unhappy, but no reasons are given and one can only presume that her father didn't come looking for her sooner is that the police had assured him that she was better off where she was until she was ready to face her old life again.

The uneasy situation invites viewers to speculate about Betty and Richard's marriage, her bond with Max, and Yelena's motive for killing herself. But any reading has to be done between the lines, as the performers are content to conspire with Petzold in withholding any manifest truths. Yelena's clothes suggest that Betty had treated her as mama's little girl, while Laura's readiness to step into her shoes implies that she might have been trying to run away from her old self. Yet, she returns to college to complete her studies and we're left to surmise whether she noticed her surrogate family in the audience as we seek to interpret her last enigmatic smile.

Since taking over from Nina Hoss as Petzold's muse, Paula Beer has challenged audiences to fathom her characters. Traces of vulnerability, elusiveness, and psychological complexity have characterised Marie, the wife of a missing person. in Transit (2018), the historian with a troubled love life in Undine (2020), and Nadja, the unexpected guest at a Baltic holiday home, in Afire (2023). But Laura is more slippery and less likable than her predecessors, as she never seems to care about the impact she is having (whether she's aware of it or not) on Betty, who is played by another Petzold regular, Barbara Auer, who featured in The State I Am In, Yella (2007), and Transit.

Unfussily, but elegantly shot in natural light and country colours by Hans Fromm, the action relies heavily on K.D. Gruber's production design and Katharine Ost's costumes to fill in some of the many gaps and ambiguities with which Petzold bestrews a scenario that leaves more off screen than it puts on. He also leans on the sound design created by Dominik Schleier. Marek Forreiter, and Bettina Böhler, whose editing also supplies the seductive rustic rhythms that entice Laura into prolonging her stay in order to delay addressing her existential dilemmas. Where she goes after the final fade to black is anyone's guess - but the same goes for her life before the opening shot on the bridge.

DIAMANTI.

Turkish-Italian director Ferzan Özpetek had never quite fulfilled the promise shown in such early features as Hamam (1997), Harem Suare (1999), The Ignorant Fairies (2001), Facing Windows (2003), and Sacred Heart (2005). But he has still had a marvellous career and he returns with Diamanti, an Almodóvarian melodrama set against the backdrop of the Italian film industry in the 1970s.

Özpetek's 15th feature harks back to the time he was an assistant to such important Italian directors as Massimo Troisi, Maurizio Ponzi, Ricky Tognazzi, Sergio Citti, and Francesco Nuti. Among his tasks was to liaise with the costume makers at the Sartoria Tirelli, which was run by Piero Tosi. As it's dedicated to Mariangela Melato, Virna Lisi, and Monica Vitti, it's fitting that the action opens with some of the actresses with whom Özpetek has worked down the years. Indeed, he even takes a cameo as himself to welcome such old colleagues as Luisa Ranieri, Jasmine Trinca, Nicole Grimaudo, Paola Minaccioni, Elena Sofia Ricci, Lunetta Savino, Aurora Giovinazzo, Milena Vukotic, Carla Signoris, Anna Ferzetti, and Loredana Cannata. Along with newcomers Vanessa Scalera, Geppi Cucciari, Milena Mancini, Sara Bosi, and Mara Venier, they have been invited to lunch and a read through of Özpetek's latest screenplay, which he has co-written with Carlotta Corradi and Elisa Casseri and which sets its story in Rome in 1974.

Sisters Alberta (Luisa Ranieri) and Gabriella Canova (Jasmine Trinca) run a fashion house that designs costumes for the stage and screen. When Oscar-winning designer Blanca Vega (Vanessa Scalera) comes to discuss her forthcoming 18th-century saga, she drops beads down the staircase to emphasise the fluidity she requires with the fabrics. Alberta is concerned that they are taking on too much work and that their seamstresses are exhausted. But the micro-managing Gabriella insists they will cope and produce their customarily excellent work.

Her husband, Lucio (Luca Barbarossa), detects distress at the dinner table, but she swears everything is under control. By contrast, seamstress Nicoletta (Milena Mancini) gets hell from spouse Bruno (Vinicio Marchioni) when he comes home in a foul mood after being fired and tosses her into the yard with a slap for serving up substandard risotto.

Unable to find child care, Paolina (Anna Ferzetti) brings her young son into work and gets lectured by Gabriella. But Silvana (Mara Venier) hides him away in a storeroom before telling Paolina how she used to be a dancer in the music-hall before time caught up with her and her boyfriend lost interest. The mood lightens, however, when a couple of hunky men make a delivery and the women cajole them into singing a song and everyone joins in for an impromptu dance number that leaves both men smitten with newcomer Giuseppina (Sara Bosi), who annoys Gabriella by wanting to design before she had learnt the ropes.

Something of a diva, Bianca is unhappy with a dress until she sees Gabriella unwrap a sweet and gets the idea to decorate the frock with ruffles. Actress Alida Borghese (Carla Signoris) proves harder to please when she comes for a fitting and Alberta and Gabriella have to prevent her from bumping into deadly rival Sofia Volpi (Kasia Smutniak) in the next room.

Alberta is taken aback when Leonardo Cavani (Carmine Recano) comes to the atelier with a financial proposal. Gabriella doesn't recognise him, but he was the love of her sister's life and she reminds him of how he had broken her heart in Paris 15 years earlier. When they dine with Aunt Olga (Milena Vukotic), it emerges that Alberta was working for Balenciaga at the time and seems to have sacrificed her career to join Gabriella in business. Seemingly, she was also close to Silvana, who continues to worry about her.

Meanwhile, Beatrice (Aurora Giovinazzo), the niece of Eleonora (Lunetta Savino), is hidden away in a storeroom after she flees the police following a street demonstration. During the night, she adds brocade to a dress and Bianca is delighted with it and asks who did such exquisite work, but no one knows. On her next visit, however, she fumes that a costume that is key to revealing a character's personality has been altered without her permission and Alberta and Gabriella fall out when the former refuses to admonish their client for being so rude to their workers.

Over a typically gossipy staff lunch, Nina (Paola Minaccioni) notices the cut on Nicoletta's lip and offers her sympathy. Fausta (Geppi Cucciari) says they will help her kill Bruno and dump his body in the well and she agrees to let them know the next time he hurts her. Working late, Alberta catches Beatrice tinkering with another dress and is so impressed by her reasons for the change that she hires her. Across the city, Nina (Paola Minaccioni) tries to coax son Vittorio (Dario Samac) into watching television with her, but he refuses to leave his room. Eventually, he agrees to visit a friend of Eleonora's to discuss his problems and father Marco (Valerio Morigi) offers to take him.

Lorenzo the film director (Stefano Accorsi) comes to the atelier and demands that a train is added to a dress against Bianca's wishes. She cringes at being humiliated in front of the staff, but the sisters play it cool in order to keep Lorenzo happy. When he returns, he throws a hissy fit and Bianca walks out, confiding in the sisters that she suffers from crippling doubts and hated going up for her Oscar because she felt everyone was judging her.

One rainy night, Fausta calls Nicoletta to check she's okay, but she has already turned the tables on her abusive spouse when he had tried to tip her into the well. Alberta keeps receiving gifts from Cavani and is so preoccupied that she doesn't listen to Bianca when she discusses the train dress. However, she promises to sell an heirloom for Paolina after finding her son cowering in the button room and realising how expensive it must be for a single mum to put her child through school. Discovering the piece is worthless, Alberta tells Paolina that she'd like to keep it in return for helping with her son's expenses. At the same time, Silvana gives the boy her lucky charm.

Alberta allows Beatrice to stay late to work on some sketches because she has genuine talent. Despite being a costume short and up against a deadline, the sisters lunch with Aunt Olga and bump into Cavani at the restaurant. Gabriella insists on saying hello and is introduced to his wife, Rita (Loredana Cannata). She wonders if Alberta is her husband's friend from Paris and reveals that she had an accident there that left her in a wheelchair. But Alberta insists she's never been to Paris and, when she gets a quiet moment with Cavani, she touches his shoulder in forgiveness because she now knows why he stood her up all those years before.

During a smoking break, Nicoletta tells her friends that Bruno went out for cigarettes and never came back and they all know what must have happened and are pleased for her. However, they're all on edge when Gabriella mistakenly double-books Alida and Sofia and they have a slanging match about the former returning to the stage because she's too old to make films. Slamming the office door, Alberta threatens to fire Gabriella because she keeps making errors and isn't pulling her weight. She urges her to stop dwelling on her young daughter being run over and start living in the present. But Gabriella is hurt by the suggestion that she should snap out of it and help keep the business afloat, even though she knows she has to stop been paralysed by grief. Alberta runs after her when she leaves the studio and they hug.

Bianca apologises to the staff for Lorenzo's behaviour and admits he confuses her. She gives Beatrice one of her sketches as a memento and Gabriella has an idea. A few days later, during a sit-down lunch cooked by Silvana, the seamstresses slip away from the table one by one. Alberta notices them go, but isn't aware they are beavering away with red fabric and beads. She joins them with Bianca, who is thrilled to see her sketch coming to life and they work all night, with Sofia as their model, to finish the gown. She applauds them all, as she marvels at their creation.

Suddenly, the camera alights on Özpetek, who nods at the sleeping Silvana. He wanders around the empty atelier, as voices from the past echo around him. He sees Elena Sofia Ricci gliding between rooms. She smiles and reminds him that he had taught her that the only thing that matters is what remains inside us. Walking on, he opens a cupboard door and reaches in for the lucky glass sphere that Silvana had given to Paolina's son and he holds it up to the right-side lens of his glasses and looks at the audience.

Rooted in such Hollywood ensemble pieces as George Cukor's The Women (1939) and Sidney Lumet's The Group (1966), this is a splendidly involving drama that pieces together several vignettes to create more of a character study than a storyline. Some of the seamstress tales feel a bit novelettish, but Özpetek knows precisely what he's doing, as he has the score by Giuliano Taviani and Carmelo Travia ladle on the pathos when required. And, in an extra wink to the audience, he even repurposes the crux of Leo McCarey's An Affair to Remember (1957) for the culmination of the Alberta/Cavani strand!

This is played, as is the entire picture, with impeccable good taste by a cast whose collusion in the mischief is made apparent during the opening luncheon. Indeed, they even feature in an occasional self-reflexive cutaway, as if to remind us that we are watching a film and that even they were affected by scenes like the one in which Gabriella's secret is revealed. Possibly Özpetek pushes this gambit too far by appearing during the all-nighter to look directly into the lens after checking up on the snoozing Silvana and then to encounter Elena Sofia Ricci on the deserted set before producing the keepsake that resembles the snow globe in Orson Welles's Citizen Kane (1941).

Luisa Ranieri and Jasmine Trinca must be singled out for their exceptional performances, but mention should also be made of Vanessa Scalera as the insecure Bianca and Mara Venier as the den-mothering Silvana, who never seems to get ruffled. Unlike some of the marvellous costumes designed by Stefano Ciammitti, whose colours are vividly captured by cinematographer Gian Filippo Corticelli, who also captures with atmospheric finesse the light changes between the different rooms in Deniz Göktürk Kobanba's interiors.