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How entertaining? ★★★☆☆
Thought provoking? ★★☆☆☆ 19 September 2011
This article is a review of MORE. |
“You must admit, this is better than that junk of yours,” Stefan (Klaus Grünberg)
“It’s very different,” Estelle (Mimsy Farmer)
“What’s the difference?”
“This makes everything beautiful, and light,”
Director Barbet Schroeder made the gripping REVERSAL OF FORTUNE, which won Jeremy Irons his Oscar (though he should’ve got one for DEAD RINGERS). I was definitely intrigued about how Schroeder got to the 1990 courtroom drama, and his debut MORE (1969) has been released on DVD. It’s of course a very different beast. A drug drama two years before Al Pacino’s THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK (coincidentally just released on DVD); this is different to that and say REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. Eschewing grittiness and hellishness, instead making it a slow-burn addiction on a picturesque island – Ibiza.
“It’s very different,” Estelle (Mimsy Farmer)
“What’s the difference?”
“This makes everything beautiful, and light,”
Director Barbet Schroeder made the gripping REVERSAL OF FORTUNE, which won Jeremy Irons his Oscar (though he should’ve got one for DEAD RINGERS). I was definitely intrigued about how Schroeder got to the 1990 courtroom drama, and his debut MORE (1969) has been released on DVD. It’s of course a very different beast. A drug drama two years before Al Pacino’s THE PANIC IN NEEDLE PARK (coincidentally just released on DVD); this is different to that and say REQUIEM FOR A DREAM. Eschewing grittiness and hellishness, instead making it a slow-burn addiction on a picturesque island – Ibiza.
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“I don’t feel anything at all,” Stefan
“You will,” Estelle
For most of the film it’s unclear what it is about (if anything) and where it is heading, and that is a pleasure in itself. It’s the 60s and Stefan (Klaus Grünberg) has just finished studying, so he decides to hitchhike around Europe. He imagines his journey as a quest, he wants to live, wants to be warm and doesn’t mind if he gets burned. Stefan comes across Charlie (Michel Chanderli) and they burgle a place, to get some money for them to carry on “not doing anything”. At the same time the former falls in love at first sight with Estelle (Mimsy Farmer). She is hailed as bad news, but he doesn’t take heed. Estelle is beautiful and sexy, easily seducing Stefan. He follows her to Ibiza, handsomely shot by cinematographer Nestor Almendros (DAYS OF HEAVEN!!). The story maybe laissez-faire (at first anyway), but the look isn’t – a confidence from everyone involved is impressive. Stefan and Estelle live out an idyll in a secluded part of the island, but she introduces him to heroin.
There is an Adam and Eve allegory, which feels a bit heavy-handed, and controversial, until I watched the DVD extra – Schroeder said it was loosely based on a girl he dated, who tried to get him into drugs. The sensuality of the film is offset by a very subtle undercurrent of unease, foreshadowed even when Stefan says that there can’t be pleasure without tragedy. Adding to the allure of the film is Pink Floyd’s score used as source music (record players and tape decks). MORE is an unusual curiosity worth investigating.
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