best movie i've ever seen.

This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

German youngster Stefan hitchhikes from cold and rainy Germany to Paris "looking for the sun". In Paris he gets acquainted with lowlife Charlie and mysterious Estelle. After a burglary with Charlie, Stefan follows Estelle to Ibiza where she is not exactly welcoming him. Estelle is busy with her friends, a proto-hip crowd of drug addicts, and with German doctor Wolf, her alleged lover and pusher.At first against hard drugs, Stefan quickly turns into a major user himself. When Estelle steals some dope from Wolf, the couple goes hiding in the solitary luxury of a beautiful villa overlooking a desert coast where they spend a hot summer of sex and drugs, hiding from Wolf. At the end of the summer, all Stefan has left is a major addiction to heroin and the need for a job. Who could be better to supply both but Wolf? When tragedy ensues, Estelle has already made a move out of Stefan's life.The weakest part of the movie is the Stefan-Estelle relationship. Based on nothing more than lust, it seems hardly likely to inspire a tragic devotion. The movie does not work well either as a cautionary tale against drugs. It does not dwell on horrific details explored on later movies. In fact, it may even inspire a sort of nostalgia for a simpler past (minus the heroin) and lusty summers spent on desert islands. Nevertheless, the unadorned approach and documentary style work well for the minimalist tale.My personal impression is that the bare settings were due to lack of funds. However, it should be noted that the soundtrack is signed Pink Floyd, albeit not yet a super-band (the main reason why the movie is still circulating) and Mimsy Farmer's wardrobe is quite nice and above the standard hippie clothes one would expect for her character.

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.

OK. Well, I guess it was worth my time sitting through this *once* but I won't be watching it again. There are several things about this film that irritated me.First, man...I really hated the characters. I had the same problem with Sid and Nancy. I have a hard time rationalizing spending a fair chunk of time following characters who I really don't care about, and can't relate to. It's not that the actors or the writing were technically bad; it was that the characters were written in such a way that I just had contempt for them, and as the movie went on, I almost wanted to see the sky fall on them. And this leads me to the second problem, and a question which I think is at the heart of this movie: Was the intent to simply document this generation and these types of bohemians who were (I guess) wandering around Europe in the 60s? Was the intent to criticize and lambaste them? Or was this film some kind of a warning? My final assessment of the film (that is to say, in determining if there was anything salvageable here at all) hinges on this question.Regardless, these characters are really unlikeable, and as a consequence, it's hard to really give a crap about the plot or what happens to them. If this was some sort of statement on this generation, then the film becomes a little more tolerable. It is clear that Schroeder is not some kind of geriatric establishment square, so the way he proceeds here carries more weight than, say, the countless stupid AIP films set in or concerning the 60s counterculture.At bare minimum, this film has two things going for it - first, the soundtrack (obviously). I like how Cymbaline is used here and others have mentioned it too, as it takes the forefront in the movie. I am guessing that if you are a Pink Floyd fan and want to see it for that reason, nothing you read here is likely to stop you from watching it anyway (it wouldn't stop me either). The curiosity of hearing Pink Floyd in a movie may be enough to just barely get you through this.Secondly, there is some nice scenery. Ibiza looks like a nice place to visit. Maybe I'm just sick of looking at Los Angeles, New York, and Chicago in films, but European films which take the time to actually show us Europe (the beautiful or the ugly - mostly beautiful here) are always welcome.But I really see no particular genius here. No revolutionary camera work, not even a moral, tone, message, sensibility, or plot that has anything new to say. Perhaps what was revolutionary about this was merely that it came from a guy like Schroeder - a film critical of a mindset that at least in part made his movies marketable. To that extent it is an honest film; there's no glorification of the abject excesses of the 60s here, which is perhaps something you might expect. In fact, the portrayal of the characters in this film closely mirrors the (somewhat distorted, in my opinion) modern cultural memory of that generation.Oh yeah, bunch of (yawn) nudity and sex here; nothing new if you watch these kinds of movies from this time period. I guess it was considered novel or provocative or something at the time. I don't find it offensive or titillating (I doubt you will either); rather it just extends the running time of an already tedious film. In its own way, this particular use of sexuality in movies of the time (especially European ones) has become a bit of a cliché. But I guess in hindsight you can't blame them; they were just in that decade able to "get away with it" and I suppose (I'm guessing here) the very presence of this kind of graphic sexuality was a political or social statement in and of itself (That being that sexuality was a part of life that this generation wasn't going to be all weird about like their parents were).Should you watch it? If you're a Pink Floyd fan, sure...I guess it's worth a watch. In any case, The Valley is a better film. I went into this movie expecting largely what I got. If you don't normally watch these kinds of arty, avant garde films and don't know what to expect, this is bound to be annoying as hell. This is a normal, healthy reaction :) If you're not a Pink Floyd fan, I'm not sure why you'd spend your time here. I noticed one fellow who left a comment did enjoy this movie quite a lot, so maybe I'm just missing something. I don't need guys running in slow motion from fireballs, special effects, explosions, or anything like that to enjoy a movie. But I do need some kind of handle - I need to find something to like about a movie, and generally I need to sympathize with some aspect of the characters' plight (barring that some novel film-making will work; camera-work and so forth). Here, there's just nothing to hold on to except for Pink Floyd's magnificence. Which is *just enough* to make this tolerable. At bare minimum, if you're a Pink Floyd fan to begin with, you'll like the bit with Cymbaline, I promise.

"More" is yet another addition into the countless pile of 60's druggie, trippy junk. Avoid at all cost. Terrible acting, equally moribund script. The only thing to enjoy is Pink Floyd's wonderful soundtrack, which is too good for stereotypical waste like this.