2012's Kill Me (Töte mich) is about a killer who's not really a killer and a suicidal girl who's not really suicidal, despite the fact that one has killed a man and the other has tried to kill herself. It's a rather innocent film about innocent people who've been misdiagnosed by society and family. It's not especially insightful but it's sensitive and some pretty photography makes it a nice way to spend a mellow hour and a half.
Adele is a fifteen year old girl living on a farm with her parents in a remote part of Germany. She herds and milks the cows and occasionally stands on the edge of a cliff to think about killing herself. We later learn this is because she was in an accident with her brother on a moped, her brother was killed and she lived.
Her parents are quiet, humourless people and we see the three of them at dinner in habitual, solemn silence.
I don't believe someone who says she wants to kill herself but doesn't is necessarily not really suicidal. Suicide takes courage, so does skydiving, that doesn't mean someone who gets cold feet just before jumping off the plane never really wanted to jump to begin with. But I never had the impression Adele was really suicidal, just suffering from a smothered imagination. When asked why she wants to kill herself, she says it's because she's tired of being where she is. It hasn't occurred to her there might be something better away from the farm.
One day, she's abruptly grabbed and threatened at knifepoint by Timo, an escaped convict who was imprisoned for the murder of his father. She agrees to help him escape on the condition that he kill her, something she's not yet had the courage to do herself. She helps him to the next town and he seems like he's about to kill her when they're interrupted by a passer-by. One thing leads to another and they end up on the run together, trying to get to Marseilles in the hopes of taking a boat to Africa. As time passes, the adventure seems to put a spring in Adele's step and when they stop at the edge of a cliff in France, jumping off doesn't even occur to her.
And Timo can't kill her, either. We learn the father he killed had assaulted him regularly and his death was likely an act of self-defence on Timo's part. Timo is a violent sort of fellow, quick to anger and he becomes frustrated at any attempt to discuss his past. But Adele starts to loosen him up just as the experience brings her out of her gloom.
They never have a romantic relationship though the tension is there, of course. There's something of the older man/young girl dynamic that's been popular in independent films I think since Lost in Translation. Though to ensure the movie has some sex just for fun, a Frenchwoman shows up almost at random, lets the fugitives stay in her house for the night, and has sex with Timo despite the fact that they have no language in common.
This could be a way of saying that Timo requires a lack of verbal communication to be intimate with someone. I think it was just a bit of pleasant pulp diversion.
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