Barbet Schroeder
More

As those who have had the chance to read my reviews posted on Debaser might have noticed, I usually analyze films that can be categorized as dating back to '68 and around. Whether it’s due to my birth-related reasons (I belong to the baby boomers group), or because in that historical moment cultural stimuli were abundant (and excellent), I often find interesting insights in films (and not only) from that era to analyze and propose. Sometimes I stumble upon curious works that may not be entirely classifiable as consistent testimonies to a certain libertarian and disruptive spirit compared to the prevailing and accepted norms in society at that time.

And it is precisely this consideration that spontaneously comes to me every time I watch "More" by French director Barbet Schroeder (then his debut work) in 1969. Presented at the Cannes Festival that year, the film rose to the rank of a damned niche work, achieving only moderate success in France, while here it was distributed only after suffering some cuts from what was then the watchful Italian censorship.

The events outlined in the plot are certainly raw. A young German graduate named Stefan (Klaus Grunberg) hitchhikes from Lübeck to Paris. His intentions are very clear, to the point of having him say, in the voiceover, that "I had imagined this trip as a quest. I had finished my mathematics studies and wanted to start living. I wanted to burn bridges, burn formulas, and if I burned myself as well, that was fine. I wanted warmth, I wanted the sun, and I went looking for it." Arriving thus in the French capital, he begins to live by expedients together with another boy, crafty and charming, named Charlie. One evening, while they are in an apartment hosting a party, Stefan meets a young American, Estelle (played by a fascinating Mimsy Farmer), and is attracted to her. Charlie's wise advice to steer clear of an unreliable girl like Estelle is in vain. Stefan, in search of new experiences and exotic destinations bathed in the sun, follows her to Ibiza. Here, the hidden and gloomy side of the girl surfaces, for despite her charm, she turns out to be a rotten junkie and already the lover of a middle-aged man, also German with Nazi past times, who not only manages hotels but also supplements his income by underhandedly dealing drugs. In short, it's a miserable scene, but Stefan is too lost behind this beautiful prostitute and thus ends up caught up in the whirlwind of drugs, trying with Estelle every imaginable prohibited substance, in a Rossinian crescendo from which escape is very difficult. Needless to say, the final outcome for him will be fatal (unlike the femme fatale Estelle...)

What makes me think that "More" is a film not entirely in line with the general moods of that transitional phase from the 60s to the 70s of the last century? From a formal point of view, certainly the salient elements of that era are evident: it is a picaresque work (on the road according to a then-overused formula), there is a breath of freedom so dear to the young generations of the time, very inclined to experience new adventures. Thus, free love practices are not lacking, full nudity under the sun's rays in Ibiza (still a truly alternative vacation destination at the time, before it became a sort of Spanish Rimini...). Not to mention the use and consumption of drugs designed to promote an opening of consciousness.

All this is present (not forgetting, needless to say, an excellent hallucinogenic trip soundtrack signed by Pink Floyd), but going beyond the surface, the director leads us to other reflections. Meanwhile, what is staged is a truly destructive process of falling in love when feelings are directed at the wrong people like Estelle (here demonstrating her dangerous nature, almost as if she were a praying mantis that, after mating, kills the male). Stefan, an apparently very rational German boy, embodies that impetuous romantic spirit that characterized the Sturm und Drang cultural movement in Germany, which knew no limits: any experience had to be lived to the fullest, to the extreme consequences. Not for nothing, in one of the scenes in the film, Stefan, in the grip of drugs' effects, takes a rod and attempts to charge a windmill in the Ibiza countryside. He thus poses as a novel Don Quixote and cannot succeed in the endeavor just like that literary hero. Therefore, any action attempted by Stefan is futile.

But even more devastating is what the consumption of various types of drugs entails, from the simple hashish joint to heroin injection, passing through intermediate phases dominated by lysergic acids. The two protagonists, Stefan in particular while Estelle seems more resistant to the stupefaction induced by drugs, embark on a spiral of psychophysical decay that seems unstoppable. Watching what unfolds in the story, I almost feel like hearing what some old aunt might comment, echoing an old folk saying like "too much of a good thing!" In reality, the director has no moralistic intentions, simply recording the facts for what they are, as a detached observer conducting a normal scientific examination. Which nevertheless has a chilling nature given that in those years drug use was somewhat imbued with a romantic aura, and only a song like "Heroin" by the Velvet Underground objectively described the exact nature of drug addiction. Only subsequently will it become clear that any abuse of illicit substances (and even licit ones like tobacco and alcohol) does not make those who consume them healthy and free. And certainly, characters in the film like Stefan and Estelle do not find themselves living in an optimal condition. At best, even for them, what the famous American novelist Francis Scott Fitzgerald wrote holds true: "Of course, every life is a process of demolition."