Close (2004)

The film depicts the collision of two extreme personalities. Anna suffers from severe depression and has not left the unfurnished apartment in an otherwise empty apartment building in Berlin for quite some time, while Jost is homeless and disillusioned, wandering the streets in search of any kind of confrontation. They meet when Jost, looking for somewhere to sleep, tries to climb through the window into Anna’s supposedly empty apartment. Anna notices him and opens the window. Without much conversation, Jost is standing at her door again on the following nights, and Anna, who is desperately searching for closeness, accepts his aloof manner. She avoids contact with other people, such as her mother and her friend Susanne, using excuses. One night, after Jost provokes two railway employees until they beat him up, he drags himself to Anna with what little strength he has left. She gives him rudimentary care and takes advantage of his weakened state to have sex with him. Jost goes along with it, resisting only tentatively. The next day, because he is in severe pain, he wants her to go to the pharmacy. She makes him ask for a long time, and he begins insulting her. When he tries to leave the apartment under his own power, she pushes him to the floor and ties him to a chair after he loses consciousness. With a gag in his mouth, she leaves him sitting in the hallway. The next day, Anna has a long-postponed appointment with Susanne. She drags Jost into the bedroom, opens the door to her friend, and soon tries to send her away again. When Susanne finally tries to open the bedroom door, Anna becomes physically aggressive and forces her to leave. By then, Jost has long since managed to remove the gag from his mouth, but he stays quiet. In the evening, Anna puts him, chair and all, in bed beside her and covers him up. Then she decides to untie him and let him go. Back on his feet, Jost packs his bag, but instead of leaving the apartment, he kicks in the bathroom door, behind which Anna has locked herself in. She is crouched naked in the bathtub. After she puts her dress back on, he drags her by force to the apartment door, down the stairs and out of the building. Anna nearly panics. After a few seconds outside, she runs back up to the apartment. Jost lets her pass, saying, “Then go and die up there!” He waits outside the building for a few more minutes while Anna wanders around her apartment in a distraught state. In the next scene, Jost is seen stopping a car in the street and forcing the driver to get out. He gets in and floors it. Meanwhile, Anna has decided to leave the apartment once more. Jost deliberately crashes at top speed into a stone obstacle. Anna walks through the deserted streets of the night, wearing a coat. In the final scene, the two are shown meeting again on a street. It is still the same night, but Jost is unharmed. The film’s ending therefore also leaves open the possibility that Anna killed herself in her apartment.