Ich bin Du

In the labyrinthine theatrical world of Weimar-era Berlin, 'Ich bin Du' plunges into the disquieting chasm of identity erosion. Anton Meier, a celebrated stage actor whose very essence is performance, finds his meticulously constructed reality unraveling with the spectral emergence of Klaus Richter, a destitute vagrant bearing an uncanny, almost terrifying, resemblance. What begins as a macabre curiosity for Anton—a famed artist confronting his own mirror image in the gutters—swiftly morphs into a psychological torment. Richter, with an eerie, almost preternatural ability, begins to subtly infiltrate Anton's life, not merely as a doppelgänger but as a shadow consuming the substance. The film masterfully charts Anton's descent into existential dread, his initial fascination giving way to profound paranoia as his public persona, his relationships with his devoted fiancée, Elise, and even his memory become porous, susceptible to Richter's insidious encroachment. The boundaries between self and other, between authentic experience and performed existence, blur into an indistinguishable, nightmarish tapestry, forcing both character and audience to confront the fragile, often performative, nature of personal identity.