More

In the late 60's, after graduating in Mathematics, the German Stefan Brückner (Klaus Grünberg) hitchhikes from Lübeck to Paris to see the world without money. He befriends Charlie (Michel Chanderli) in an arcade and they go to a party. When Stefan meets gorgeous American Estelle Miller (Mimsy Farmer) in the party, Charlie advises him to stay away from her. However, the straight Stefan falls in love with Estelle and after breaking in a house with Charlie to rob, he follows her to Ibiza. Stefan seeks out the hotel of his fellow citizen Dr. Ernesto Wolf (Heinz Engelmann) where Estelle is lodged. He asks her to leave the place and stay with him in an isolated seaside house. Before leaving the hotel, Estelle steals some money and a pack from Wolf. Sooner Stefan learns that Estelle had stolen 200 doses of heroin and he decides to try one fix with her, in the beginning of his trip to hell.

"More" is a cult-movie from the late 60 that became famous due to the music score by Pink Floyd. The film is a sort of response to the counterculture of apology to the drugs of the 60's and 70's and is dated in the present days. My great interest to see "More" was the Pink Floyd soundtrack, and I found it s great film, developed in slow pace to a predictable climax in the very end. Mimsy Farmer is amazing in the role of a destructive woman with face of angel but of death. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "More"

'More' is a film legendary amongst Floyd collectors, and is well worth the time spent searching, since it features some of the bands' most spontaneous and eclectic work.

I was lucky enough to find some evidently battered and old publicity postcards for the film at a local art centre. The copy on the card makes for good reading if you enjoy the film, or are interested in it's history: _____________________________________________________________

"of beauty, sex and drugs: more"

"'More' probably contains more footage of naked bodies than any other film that has made it past Plymouth Rock. It's strong stuff. A powerful movie about drugs. Mimsy Farmer as Estelle, is one of the real baddies of all time, a totally amoral person who shoots heroin (even under her tongue!), cavorts in the nude, lies, steals, makes love to girls, and destroys every man who falls in love with her." - The Sunday New York Times.

"'More' is tough, candid stuff, clearly among the good ones." - National Observer.

"A very beautiful, very romantic movie." - The New York Times.

The card features a wonderful black and white picture of Estelle and Stefan in characteristically joyous mood celebrating their (perhaps new-found and ill-fated) freedom, and classifies the film as "'X' Persons Under 17 Not Admitted".

Interestingly the film saw general video release in France with a '12' certificate.

My copy, available via amazon.com, and released by Janus Films and Home Vision Cinema, does not state a certificate, though the drug use would probably warrant an '18' certificate if release were attempted in the UK.

Circa 2000, the film is broadcast on monthly rotation by Film Four, a UK subscription film channel.

I would be interested to hear from the director, Barbet Schroeder, as to why he decided to make More his first film, and more specifically what his interest in hippies- or rather this form of the Euro-hippie paradise- and about their demise. The film is, at least, true enough to keep one interested, but in its own kind of truth it's strange, biased. It's a given heroin (aka, "Horse") is awful stuff, rotten, the conclusion for many a dumb-headed drug user that sees that as the be-all-end-all, because it basically is: after that everything else stops, that becomes the life, and it's either a continuous run for more of the same or death. More starts off as something concerning a romance between a New York girl and a German man, but it becomes something else, for better or worse (sometimes both in the same scene).

It's basically about two "young" people, Estelle and Stefan, who meet in a city where Stefan has come as a sort of wanderer away from his home country. She's wandering too, sort of, and is maybe too friendly with a big-time pusher named Wolf. They end up on a remote island somewhere nearby and, after a somewhat daring grab for some "horse" by Estelle, they also find a pad in the form of a seemingly remoter house along the seashore. Schroeder's comment on youth and sex and drugs isn't too simplistic, which makes the film actually lucid and intelligent so many years later. It's both direct and subtle, more about the characters and then about the fact that what he's depicting could in other hands just be a propagandistic hippie-exploitation picture. Perhaps most pleasantly, and this is just a guess, Schroeder uses as inspiration the sort of long sequence from Bergman's Summer with Monika: two kids in an inexorable connection, some good some definitely not so good, set against (too?) perfectly shot landscapes.

On the one hand, I should mention that there are problems, some big ones in fact. The performances aren't very convincing throughout; a few scenes strike some power or have the actors in a good connection with one another, but Klaus Grumberg overplays himself even if he is an ornery German by nature (in that case I would've preferred Klaus Kinski in the part to make it crazier but deep enough for the subject matter) as does Farmer to her own degree. And there's gaps of naiveté in the screenplay that keep it from being as deep as it really thinks it is. On the other hand, there are two big things going for it: Nestor Almendros, the great cinematographer (i.e. Days of Heaven) is DP and is a big boost for a first time director like Schroeder. Nearly every image is seen with an awesome purpose or artistry, be it a shot of the cliffs by the sea or sun or something as simple as the seemingly natural light of a room.

The other thing is Pink Floyd, probably the main reason I and many others have heard of the film in the first place (years before I knew really who Schroeder was I saw the "More" soundtrack whenever I looked up Pink Floyd albums). It's very good music throughout, occasionally the mind-blowing variety that gives them the reputation they deserve. Some of it, too, is a little tedious, even as it is a movie that concerns free love and lots of drugs and sometimes both at the same time. I wouldn't rank it anywhere near as high as a Meddle or Animals, certainly not Dark Side, but it too helps to elevate the subject matter another notch, particularly when one least expects it or in low tones or floating in and out of buildings as Stefan or other walks on the streets. It's almost better atmosphere than the movie itself deserves, but overall More is still worth watching as a period piece- dated, but potent, like a less ambitious but more substantial Zabriskie Point.

I actually have the honor of having this movie on tape. This movie is based on a true story, which makes it even better, it started off with the director of this movie looking for his friend, and finding out he is dead, and the whole movie is based on the interviews they had with the people who met her friend. It's a great movie, and pink floyd are truly at their best, that is also my fave pink floyd tape. I suggest you watch this low-key deep movie

Kind of a low-key "Days of wine and roses," this is hardly a standard 1960's drug film. Director Schroeder (whom one can deduce is represented by Charlie the good-natured street hustler) states initially it's about a friend who died of drug overdose, so we know it's going to be a story of psychic corruption rather than an exploration of the ideals of Timothy Leary. It might seem that Schroeder is really glamorizing drugs simply by example, as well as by showing the sex life of the characters, and by employing a real psychedelic band for the soundtrack. However, Schroeder doesn't show subjective scenes of drug use; the characters trip out in their own world, usually detached from another, and the audience watches like the only sober person at a frat party. Their sex life soon peters out as drugs take over their lives. Using Pink Floyd was probably to attract unwitting youth and drug-users to see (without being preached to) how drugs can kill.

What probably does seem 'standard 1960s' to viewers today is the flat, realistic style of the film which doesn't grab the viewer (unlike the more recent "Sid and Nancy" or "Trainspotting") but was typical of independent and European films of that time. However it's still watchable, and a must for early-Pink Floyd (or "The Pink Floyd", as they're billed in the credits) fans.