Hi,
what do you think? Who was that, causing the accident at the end?
Would the police do something like that (or any gouvernment agency)?
I'm somehow puzzled about those kind of methods. Did I miss something in the movie, like other criminals/terrorists who might have wanted to kill Clara and Hans?
It was the police arresting the fugitives. Ramming the car seems to be standard practice to stun the occupants (cf. the Gladbeck hostage-taking).
The director explains in the audio commentary that he contemplated about having some flashing blue lights to indicate the situation but that he did not want to disturb the image of Jeanne's re-birth.
(CONTAINS OBVIOUSLY SPOILERS.)
It was clearly the authorities. Which authorities, well in which European country do they drive a lot of BMW :-). Of course you can't be sure about it (a lot information is on purpose left open in this movie). The German police were informed by Heinrich in the scene where Heinrich finally betrayed Jeanne (after she lied to him time after time), realizing he would never see her again it is an act of hopelessness, revenge, and perhaps false hope ("maybe this way I can still see her"). Heinrich knows where they lived, and knows how the car looked like. In my opinion the scene where Jeanne was in the car hiding for Heinrich during the robbery (after they shared the bed and such) was the final nail in the coffin for their disguise because Heinrich both saw the car as well as learned about the robbery. It is even possible Heinrich already contacted the police before Jeanne arrived (since he knew she was in the car for the robbery, and he hurt her enough to be put into "ratting" her) and was merely contacting the police to inform them about that he saw her, and that he knows where she lived.
Now as for your question (the final scene) here's my (IMO plausible) explanations. The authorities don't sent normal policemen to terrorists who were on the run for 15 years, nor armed bank robbers on the run. If the authorities can plan this and have the resources available they'd sent a special task force for dangerous people (in my country called AT; arresatieteam; literally meaning an arrest team). The authorities realize the car won't stop, and they know the runners have a gun. So they have one car before, one car behind (therefore the runner car cannot change speed) and then either slow speed or the second car (which immediately followed the first) rams the car to the side. The only way to escape from this would be speeding before all of this happens because as soon as the first car is before the driver and the second car is on the side of the driver it is end of story. The reason they'd decide to bump the car is to evade escalation (ie. a gun fight) and quickly end it because if they would somehow be able to disable the second car they could perhaps get passed the first one while right now they were trenched.
Now, in a Hollywood movie you'd see wild chase including a gun fight where bullets seemingly miss and then finally bullseye and its perfectly captured in a close up and you see the accident happening in a dramatic slow motion way and the audience would say "ohhh" and "ahhh".
Thank the Lord Director not in this movie. There's not even police lights or sound. This is because it isn't very relevant and would be a distraction; the movie is a drama and the suspense parts are short (thereby more intense, but also are put in your face which makes them more suspense). The focus in this scene is instead shown on the daughter who is both losing her parents, as well as gaining her freedom ("rebirth" as the director apparently called it).
Also, quite ironic, if you look at the second movie in this trilogy (Gespenter) it is about a slightly retarded orphan girl in late teens. She has a different name though.
I've been loving too much, caring too little -- TormentoR.