Working as a performing clown, Barbara enjoys a happy family life with Heli, tragically stripped from her when a car crash kills the father and two children. Suddenly Barbara’s philosophy as a physical performer takes a new direction when she has to take on the meaning of loss. The journey found within the film is based on a real life Austrian, who had to search for a happiness tragedy tried very hard to strip away.
Valerie Pachner plays the heroine, a character who tries to slap on a smile, however trying the circumstances. Wishing to bring happiness to audiences, Barbara is informed that she cannot proceed with the show; nobody will see Heidi the clown, but a widowed parent. “Because I’m famous”, she sneers. The manager offers to pay her nonetheless, yet the cancellation leaves her distraught, another distraction torn away.
Transported in memory to the moment she met Heli for the first time, Barbara recalls that she entered clowning after being rejected from a drama course. Tragedy tends to fuel comedy, causing the central protagonist to consider her art as a means of exploring sorrow. She attends her deceased son’s class, where she is greeted by a child and his digger. Holding the toy in her hand, she is once again reminded of the fun she enjoyed playing with vehicles. “Were they really thrown into the air?”, another toddler asks, leading Barbara to chuckle at the absurdity of the crash that killed three individuals.
Four Minus Three tastefully shows the funeral scene; circus performers and acrobats saluting dotting the cemetery. Director Adrian Goiginger inserts a photo of the actual father and two children – the eldest about five – that were killed, causing a genuine visceral reaction. What differs Goiginger’s drama from the similarly themed Three Colours Blue (Krzysztof Kieślowski, 1993) and When The Light Breaks (Rúnar Rúnarsson, 2024) is that it is based on a real-life story.
Occasionally, the non-linear form of storytelling is a detriment to the feature, muddling up the narrative. A juxtaposition from Barbara and Heli waltzing to a nursery school is the most jarring cut, muddying the emotional undercurrent, as is the jump from failed coital exchange with a man unable to arouse himself pivoting to phone call regarding fertility clinics. Some cuts from broad comedy to more damning moments of pathos don’t hit their marks. As a whole, Four Minus Three is an immersive voyage told through the eyes of a lost soul. Watching a red balloon float upwards to a ceiling, a smile begins to etch itself to the heroine’s face. Joy can be uncovered by little moments.
Pachner is astonishing as Barbara, her face contorting with nuance, pathos and pain. Her character can barely contain her fury at the banality of story in which a television actor is recognised as the doctor he plays on a soap. People search for outrage in their perfectly ordinary lives, unaware of their privilege. Barbara would do anything to switch places with any of the three others sitting at the restaurant table.
She has to ask herself if she wants to be a parent again, and discovers she does; the real Barbara Pachl-Eberhart indeed gave birth to a daughter in 2017. Hope cements the movie, which stands hand-in-hand with the remorse and turmoil endured by the mother onscreen. Pachner smiles and laughs almost as much as she frowns and cries. The sorrow never leaves, but it’s evident that Barbara is able to live by herself. Human beings are much more resilient than they think.
Four Minus Three just premiered in the Panorama section of the 75th Berlin International Film Festival.
