Ruined by the third act

I don't agree with the original post.

Usually (just saying) horror movies will have the twists only at the end (third act), but this film had in the fist act itself.

People think they figured it out early, that's what the writer wanted, coz he expect the viewers to keep guessing throughout the watch. But it is not going to deliver one and that is the twist in filmmaking, not in the film.

If the viewer is a tough guy,he'll defend his honour of what this movie made him look like a fool.

But some people won't consider opening hint as a twist, they deny it and anticipates one in the conclusion section like this OP writer wanted.

You better know what you want to do before somebody knows it for you -The Astronaut Farmer

You could see the ending from a mile. Ruined most of the film for me too, ending up giving it a 5 out of 10.

I have seen way to many movies with the schizo-twist.. after the breakfest scene I knew the plot-twist and everything just became a drawnout snoozefest with no surprises.. movie was boring as *beep*..

The ending was great. The revelation that the kids are one and the same should have been at the bath tub scene for most. Pretty much in the middle of the movie.

Where both, identical looking kids have the same nose-bleed at the same location with the same amount of blood.

What was cool in the ending was the shift of a heartless mother towards a struggling mum who was in over her head with a mentally ill kid - in addition to the accident.

-==-
Life's too short for mediocrity
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I respect every opinion in this board, but I have to agree with the original poster. Having seen Seidl's movies before this one led me to think, erroneously, that Ich Seh Ich Seh would be similar to his, static shots and nice photography apart.
The third act killed it for me, for a lot of reasons.
I'll start from the premise. Two children think their mother has been substituted by an imposter. Ok, not that original, but it may work beautifully.
Plenty of rich things to work out of this. Themes about identity, abandonment, mother-son relationship, childhood phobias, who knows.
Their mother returns, apparently from a cosmetic surgery operation, and it makes me wonder; did this mother left their children alone just to get her face redone? The movie even implies that this operation could have been done out of luxury, of selfishness, especially with that scene where The Mother looks at herself in the mirror, touching her breasts, looking at her body.
The forcedly ambiguous tone of the movie, which basically denies the audience any kind of information about plot and characters and as such forces us to try and come up with theories and interpretations, doesn't help.
Here we have very simple elements and characters without a past. So, it felt good for the first two acts to start thinking.
Is it all metaphor? Was this real or imagined?
Then, turns out, none such game was ever being played in the plot. The mother, the accident, the bandages.
It's all about a past tragedy, that's never really hinted at in no way and the entire thing we've made up in our minds, it's useless.
The movie left us walking into the dark and then pulled out extreme violence connected to a past tragedy we've known nothing about for most of the time.
The first hour seems only to be about living an eerie experience through the eyes of a child and the last 20 minutes seem to be about "Oh. That's what happens when you don't....solve...erm...bad things that happened." The kid goes *beep* crazy and kills the mother. Yeah. That left me thinking about grief and tragedy a lot.
What were they trying to talk about? That even the strongest bonds can be destroyed by grief? That violence only creates more violence? That if you've got issues, you don't wanna put them on your kid unless you want him to kill you?
I'm fine with all this, but then, if you wanna make a strong point then don't stay silent for one hour before actually saying what's going on.
Either you go all the way ambiguous or you start saying things clearly from the beginning.

And don't get me started on the "We're dead but everything is fine and now we're happy again!! :-) :-)" ending.

Everything this film conveys at the first two acts is brilliant. It's original, eerie, strange and different from everything I've seen.

That one twin died isn't the real plot twist, though. If you can, please watch the film again, and try to figure out which twin is the "bad twin." Who is really cruel, torturous? Who lights insects with a magnifying glass? And was there really an accident? Or did Elias put Lukas down by drowning him? He's the one that put the dead cat "drowned" in the terrarium where his mother would see it, and she doesn't act surprised at all. On second viewing I had to pay much closer attention to who was who, and it's just as disturbing.

I immediately caught on to the fact that one of the brothers was somehow not real very early on, when Mother wasn't acknowledging the second twin at all, and then the fact that the second twin never actually speaks to anyone, but whispers to his brother what he wants to say, and never touches anything in front of others, that continued to confirm it until the end.

I'm not sure the second twin is a ghost however - why not a psychotic figment of the first twin's imagination?