Themes: Wanderlust, Innocence Lost, Drug Addiction
Main Cast: Mimsy Farmer, Klaus Grunberg, Heinz Engelmann, Michel Chanderli, Louise Wink
Release Year: 1969
Country: LU/FR
Run Time: 110 minutes
Plot
A young man from Germany (Klaus Grunberg) leaves home and travels to Paris. Hooking up with a group of hippies, he is enamored by an American girl (Mimsy Farmer) he meets at a party. The two leave for an island off the coast of Spain and become lovers. He becomes aware she is a heroin user and warns her about the drawbacks of narcotics. The American girl allows him to sleep with her girlfriend and try heroin. After an LSD trip, the girl leaves him and he takes too much of the hallucinogenic drug. Pink Floyd provides the music for this film that decries the excesses of the counterculture. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
A German student, Stefan, who has finished his studies, decides to have an adventure, get out of his conservative skin and to burn his bridges. After hitch-hiking to Paris, he commits burglary to get money and meets a free-spirited American girl, Estelle, following her to Ibiza. He discovers she is in trouble with a man named Dr. Wolf. Stefan saves Estelle from Dr. Wolf only to find she does not really want to be saved, and she introduces him to heroin (referred to by the old street name, "horse") which she has stolen from Dr. Wolf. The inevitable spiral into drug abuse and denial ends tragically when Stefan dies.
This story is modeled on the myth of Daedalus and Icarus with the girl as the Sun.
Production
The French film Censorship Board in 1969 insisted that some of the dialog be censored around the 81 minute mark before the film could be released. In the film, as the couple mix 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. The location of Stefan's death, a tunnel near the castle, has since become a place of pilgrimage for addicts.
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