Das wilde Leben

A wonderful rendering of the 60s. If you grew up like me with the 1968 revolution as a mythical era, this film will make you jubilate. Sex, drugs, rock and roll, radical thinking, revolutionaries, and the research of freedom, pleasure and new horizons. Freeing of the mind, freeing of the body… In her small town in Bavaria, Obermaier feels the revolution pounding in her bones and can't stay in place in her confined, old-fashioned home. Listening to rock music is her escape but it simply is not enough. She takes off and lives in an activist commune for some time before becoming a lover of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and marrying a rich adventurer and traveling the world with him. A lively portrait of strong-willed Obermaier, her rebelliousness and search for unbound freedom. "Don't dream your life, live your dream" is a motto that appears in the film and could not apply better. Uschi appears unstoppable, ready to conquer the world, explore the confines of freedom. Inspiring.

After recent films about Sixties-pop-icons like Jim Morrisson, Brian Jones and Edie Sedgwick, now Uschi Obermaier is on.

This time there's a big difference, though: Uschi survived her wild young days and is still doing well. If I may believe the 'making of'-chapter of my German DVD: the real Uschi has been involved in the process, improving authenticity. The DVD also includes a few nice shots of young Uschi in her Sixties & Seventies-days.

I've also read Uschi Obermaier's autobiography 'High Times', and conclude that actress Natalia Avelon plays her character well - all set up with true German thoroughness.

Both real Uschi and her film-copy are about a girl who imaged out the moods of her young days very well - just that. What remains untold in film and autobiography, is the history of the vibrating Sixties-youth culture.

-----------------------------------

Having lived through the thirties' economic depression and world war 2, Uschi's parents were strongly molded by these tragic times. Uschi and her generation, born shorty after the war, did not carry this emotional burden. They worried about a new danger their parents mostly ignored: environment pollution.

As a result, a wide generation-gap opened up. Youngsters like Uschi Obermaier felt a strong urge to liberate themselves from their parents' strong & strict moral rules. Add to that the new availability of anti-conceptive, greatly helping in experimenting with new lifestyles.

For Uschi's generation, the late Sixties and early Seventies were a time to develop a lifestyle they felt comfortable with. It is the German version of what happened in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury neighborhood during the same period.

Saw this on Netflix streaming movies. Much of the movie is in German with English subtitles, but some of it is in English.

Uschi Obermaier was (is?) apparently a real person who joined in with what we would call the hippie free-love movement in 1960s Germany. But she was also a model and a very successful one. Much of her modeling was nude or semi-nude, graphically depicted in the film, and the actress certainly has a Playboy-worthy beauty.

German actress Natalia Avelon plays Uschi Obermaier . While she is the central character her life and travels take her many places and with many famous people. The beginning and the end of the film are the same, she is standing nude on the beach, watching a raft burn, symbolic of her relationships that had died and the men with them. In between is her story.

The critic Ebert has a very good and accurate review. Interesting film, but I lived through the 1960s and 1970s, I remember those days, and watching this one didn't do much for me.

I'm disappointed about the low rating that this movie has. It's one of my favorites and I've watched it several times. I've read other reviews to see why it has such a low rating, and I notice that people expect from it something that it's not. They expect it to be about the "Kommune", they expect it to be about an extraordinary girl, and they expect expensive set designs.

This movie is not about all that. The way I see it, Das Wilde Leben is about a journey, it's about a girl who is free and is not afraid to break boundaries, it's about a girl who uses her beauty to have the adventure of her life. She falls in love with powerful men, she lives wildly, she sees the world. And, above all, this movie is about a powerful woman.

Is the movie true to the historical facts? Is it true to Uschi's life? That's not what's important. It's a movie, not a documentary. Beyond the cheap sets and the historical inaccuracies (if there are any) lays a beautiful and inspiring story.

The story of Uschi Obermaier and her rise to fame in the 1960s. The film accurately depicts her life and in the process has many dope party scenes as well. The film is to premier in the US August 22 and I am excited to see how the English version will compare to the original German. Obermaier's accent is not "exaggerated" as the actress's native language is indeed German.

The unique viewpoint Uschi experienced during the social revolution makes for a very interesting film. Themes of growing up, life, learning to love, and experiencing loss all are major players. All in all, if you are looking for a film true to life, a film that doesn't gloss over the hardships and dull down the excitement of freedom, this is a movie for you.