More

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

Like most people, I was interested in "More" solely because of the Pink Floyd soundtrack, which has turned out to be the only Pink Floyd album that I still listen to after all these years. It was quite a surprise to run across the film in a local video store, in a digitally remastered version. It was an even bigger surprise to find that it is a pretty good movie.

Visually it is quite beautiful, especially when the two main characters are cavorting on the rocks on the Spanish island of Ibiza. And the use of the soundtrack music, which as far as I can tell is exclusively by Pink Floyd, is excellent. It was a joy to watch the film with my copy of the album alongside me, mentally ticking off each track as it was used in the film. Dave Gilmour's brief "A Spanish Piece" was the only one I didn't hear, and several tracks are used quite prominently, especially "Cymbaline," "Main Theme," and "Quicksilver." That latter track is tedious on the soundtrack album but works very well during the title sequence of the film, resurfacing at least once later on. Maybe now I can appreciate it on the album, now that I have some visuals to accompany it in my mind.

The plot of "More" is a little hard to take at times, especially in the early going, when the film appears to be merely a vehicle to demonstrate the hipness of those involved in making it. But eventually the film proves that it has much more than that to offer, as the plot becomes more focused. Why does Stefan take heroin? Why does ANYBODY take heroin, fully knowing the possible consequences? The film does not attempt to answer that question directly, but Stefan's heroin use seems a logical extension of his single-minded pursuit of pure pleasure.

I strongly recommend this film to any Pink Floyd fan who has an appreciation of the vastly underrated "More" soundtrack. I also recommend it to anyone who has an interest in sixties counterculture and how it was portrayed in the media. I have no idea how realistic this movie is, since I am too young to have experienced the sixties firsthand, but it does seem to capture the spirit of the times in a way that no other movie does.

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.

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.

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"