Stefan is a German student from Lübeck, who has finished his mathematics studies and decides to have an adventure to discard his personal commitments. After hitch-hiking to Paris, he makes friends with Charlie while playing cards in a Latin Quarter, at the hotel La Louisiane round room 36, at the crossing of rue de Seine and rue de Buci, and they decide to commit a burglary to get some money. At a swinging Left Bank party, Stefan meets a free-spirited-beautiful but elusive American girl called Estelle and follows her to Ibiza. The two become lovers, with an atmosphere of easy sex, nude sunbathing and lots of drugs. He discovers Estelle is involved with a former Nazi called Dr. Wolf. Borrowing a villa from a hippie, Stefan saves Estelle from Dr. Wolf only to find she does not really want to be saved, and she introduces him to heroin, which she has stolen from Dr. Wolf. Stefan is initially against Estelle using heroin, but having used it previously, she persuades him to try it. Soon Stefan and Estelle are both heavily addicted to heroin. They try to break the addiction using LSD and initially manage to stay clean. However, after a while they are both using heroin again. Unable to break free of the addiction, it quickly spirals out of control leading to Stefan's death.
The French film censorship board in 1969 insisted that some of the dialogue be censored around the 81-minute mark before the film could be released. In the film, as the couple mixes up a hallucinogenic concoction in the kitchen, the ingredients "benzedrine" and "banana peel" are deleted from the audio track. On the DVD the words have been re-added as subtitles. Most of the movie was shot on the island of Ibiza. The castle of Ibiza, which dominates the harbour and the town, is the scene for the final act. A tunnel near the castle was also used in Paris, the movie was shot at Hotel La Louisiane in real room 36.
Post-production
Music and soundtrack
The soundtrack from the film More has some typical instrumental jams. "The Nile Song" which, quite out of character for Pink Floyd, borders on the Stooges-like heavy rock, and a ballad featuring bongos called "Cymbaline"; written by Roger Waters but performed by David Gilmour. In the film, when Estelle gets out of her bed in her apartment in Paris, she puts on a record and changes her clothes, shouts "Groovy!"
Release
Critical reception
Upon its release, More garnered mainly negative reviews from film critics, and was controversially reviewed by audiences and scholars, who commented on the drug use and impacts. In later years, the film has since received critical acclaim. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval audience rating of 72% based on 954 ratings, and 3 reviews with a rating average of 3.6/5. At AlloCiné, which assigns a weighted mean rating to reviews, the film has a score of 3.7 based on 37 critics. With regard to the film's overall design, Roger Ebert stated, "More is a weird, freaky movie about two hedonistic kids who destroy themselves with drugs. More precisely, it's about a kinky American girl who destroys her German boyfriend and in the process destroys herself... The message seems to be: Sure, speed kills, but what a way to go."
