Identity Kills uses deceptively simple techniques to take us inside the psyche of its main character. Brigitte Hobmeier draws fully on similar simplicity and artlessness to show us Karen?s vulnerability and inner resolve.
Sören Voigt trains a microscope on what Karen Lohse dislikes about her own identity, and her efforts to escape that identity. When we first meet Karen, we easily sense that she is not well, that she is not comfortable with her life. She is starkly alone as she stalks through the streets of Berlin. We feel that something bad has happened to her, but we don?t know exactly what it is. Did she have a fight with her boyfriend? Did she try to kill herself? Was she institutionalized? We never find the exact answer to these questions, although we see her visit a psychiatrist and make a futile effort at describing a dream that she had ?when I took the pills.?
Both the camera and other characters notice that something is not right with Karen. When she visits a crystal shop, she stares so long at a figurine that the saleswoman asks her, ?Are you unwell? Do you want to sit down?? She stops by a travel agency to indulge in the fantasy of getting away (from her identity, and all that it entails?), and the travel agency practically has to wave his hand in front of her face, so completely has she drifted off. Later, she applies for a job at a flatware factory, and the woman who interviews her asks, ?What have you been doing for the past six months?? ?Oh,? says Karen vaguely, ?I was in the hospital for a couple of months, and then, you know ?? The woman gives Karen a scrutinizing look, but hires her, nevertheless.
Though Karen?s vulnerability is clear, she is not a spineless creature. When she returns home to her apartment after an absence to find that her boyfriend, Ben, has taken in another woman, she fights him, asks him what the hell is going on. Later, when his flaky, fast-lane friends materialize to celebrate his new girlfriend?s birthday, with little regard for Karen?s feelings, she tries to throw them out, but fails. We see her struggling to assert herself time and time again with Ben, but she always gives in at the end. We sense that she will always give in with Ben, and she knows it. The only solution is a new life, a change of identity. As Karen begins to assert herself and plan her future in her own furtive, scrappy way, we realize that she is willing to go to any length to create her new identity.
