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Film Description
Schroeder's directorial debut of sixties youth and drug culture famed for its score by The Pink Floyd. Naive Stefan hitchhikes to the promise of Paris where the off-beat Estelle and quantities of sex and drugs help him to find himself. When they later meet up in Ibiza heroin addiction is an increasingly destructive part of their relationship. Stunningly photographed.
Film Information
DVD Extras
Trailer; film poster; on-screen and ROM interview with Schroeder.
Technical Details
| Certificate |
18 |
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Length |
112 mins
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Label |
BFI |
| Cat No |
BFIVD587 |
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Format |
DVD |
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Colour |
| Region | 2 |
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Aspect |
1.66:1 Widescreen |
| Subtitles |
Some English subtitles.
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Share your thoughts and opinions - write a review
Review by Graeme Hobbs
on 4th February 2004
The problem with making a film in which the two leads are so utterly unsympathetic is that in ceasing to care for them, we cease to care for their world and by extension, the film itself.
More begins with a large bright sun. Then it goes behind a cloud and before the credits have finished rolling we know two things for certain: the film is going to end badly and the symbolism ain’t going to be subtle.
Stefan shivers as he waits in the rain for a lift. In a voiceover he says that he ‘wanted the sun’. What he gets instead is a big yellow truck that gives him a lift to Paris. At a party there he meets Estelle, whose first words to him are, ‘want me to fix you something?’. This time round she means a drink.
For some reason, they start a relationship of sorts, though neither seems to derive much pleasure from it. It certainly doesn’t loosen their acting up and together they are almost entirely without chemistry. Maybe this is deliberate in an ‘undercut the hippie-shit, we’re really all alone together’ kind of way, but actually it just comes across as bad acting. After they first bed down together she closes his eyes as if he was already dead and it only remains to play out the charade of his remaining life. At least they go to Ibiza where it will be warm.
Estelle is more convincing in her role with slyly demonic smiles and glances in Stefan’s direction. There are some survivors in this world against all odds and she is one of them. He is basically both insecure and unpleasant, insulting her and smacking her a surprising amount. Goodness only knows why she stays with him except to see him off perhaps. At least Stefan has some insight into his fate. ‘Where’s pleasure without tragedy?’ he says at one stage, though the point about this being a peculiarly German trait is spurious.
There are some nice touches in the film. Estelle’s stained and blotched photograph of herself that she keeps in her wallet provides an understated Dorian Gray moment, and there are some beautiful shots on Ibiza such as the windmill scene and the mercury in a pan reflecting the sunlight, but these are too fragmented to hold the wildly jumpy narrative together. By the time Stefan goes into a dark passage (it’s...er, symbolic) to shoot up for the last time he has long since exhausted our patience and quite honestly, it’s hard to think anything more than ‘good riddance’. The Pink Floyd soundtrack is sparse and moody, but sits like a well-behaved child in the corners in which it has been put and in truth doesn’t add much to the film.
View more reviews by Graeme Hobbs
Review by Paul Scott
on 11th February 2004
Having recently completed his studies Stefan arrives in Paris and offers a moment of pure narrative: “I wanted to burn bridges, all the formulas. I wanted to be warm. I wanted the sun. And if I got burned, well that would be OK.”
From here on he will exist in the present moment; although it is well-to-do English girl Estelle charting a course to the sun – introducing him to marijuana and suggesting he follow her to Ibiza. At this juncture they are looking at a diagram of the human brain and Estelle reports: “creativity and higher consciousness are like the dark, unexplored regions of Africa.” Immediately we see an image of a seabird adrift in a clear blue sky – and Stefan perched upon the white railing of a boat… This is exciting filmmaking and More seems beautifully poised. And though one must make allowances for some off-key dialogue, Schroeder has settled into a relaxed and natural style (possibly influenced by Rohmer) while the Pink Floyd’s music lends an understated flower-child ambience.
But surprisingly things assume a somewhat uneven tone and reading the film becomes problematic. Although Stefan and Estelle do enjoy a period of blissed out isolation on Ibiza – its brilliant, primal indifference rendered by master cinematographer Nestor Almendros – their pursuit of a higher consciousness ends as soon as Stefan follows Estelle into heroin addiction. Perhaps he is motivated by the fragmented nature of their love? Certainly there is a sense that Estelle will remain ‘foreign’ to him. Elsewhere his frustration is simply an inherent misogyny not attributable to any drug. Stefan is also unsettled by Estelle’s association with Wolf (ex-nazi father figure) though on screen he merely demonstrates the limits of the young couple’s freedom and the insidious commercial currency of heroin.
More is necessary viewing for anyone fascinated by the late ‘60’s counter-culture – and catches that unique moment in time when surveying the streets of Paris from an upper floor window resonated with a feeling that the world was young and charged with possibility. While Ibiza’s spectacular coastline and scorched landscape seems a beautiful release – even in death under the wintry sun. And yet, in all probability, Schroeder is telling us something different: a cautionary tale resisting the iconography of Easy Rider, Performance and Zabriskie Point. As such it provides a european perspective on the compromised relationship between drugs and social freedom.
View more reviews by Paul Scott
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