Movie Review: In 'Miroirs No. 3,' a slender and elegant tale of mutual rehabilitation

Christian Petzold’s beguiling and restorative new drama “Miroirs No. 3” begins with a glance and a car crash. Wreckage and its long-term aftermath have long marked the movies of Petzold, arguably Germany’s foremost filmmaker. In his finest and most exquisitely haunting film, 2014’s “Phoenix,” an Auschwitz survivor and cabaret singer returns unrecognized to her German hometown with a reconstructed face. “Miroirs No. 3” doesn’t have that film’s grandiosity of melodrama. It's more of a lightly enigmatic chamber piece. But it’s likewise preoccupied with piecing life together again after tragedy, and maybe finding some catharsis in music. And its startling power will, like “Phoenix,” sneak up on you, writes AP Film Writer Jake Coyle in his review.