Eight Miles High Movie Reviews
Eight Miles High (Das Wilde Leben) tells the incredible true story of European wild-child Uschi Obermaier. The film tracks her restless life from a small town girl in rural Bavaria to a fast-living fashion icon in Munich; from free-loving companion of the Rolling Stones to ultimately becoming the embodiment of the 60’s generation of sex, drugs, and rock’n'roll. This is one woman’s story about the discovery of freedom and the price one must ultimately pay to achieve it.As a luridly cartoonish but entertaining biopic of Uschi Obermaier, a German Playboy model who dabbled in radical politics in the 1960s before embarking on a hippy voyage to India on a luxury version of a VW Microbus, “Eight Miles High” passed the Proyect 10-minute endurance trial with flying colors.
Genre(S): Comedy | Drama
Written By: Achim Bornhak Dagmar Benke
Directed By: Achim Bornhak
Release Date: July 25, 2008
Cast: Natalia Avelon, David Scheller, Matthias Schweighöfer, Friederike Kempter, Alexander Scheer
Producer: Dietmar Güntsche
Runnimg Time: 114 minutes, Color
Origin: Germany
Languagea(S): German | English | Italian
Synopsis
Exuding the sexy poutiness of a Teutonic Bridget Bardot gone wild and the underground glamor and bad-girl attitude of Kate Moss, with just a dash of Jane Fonda’s chic revolutionary zeal, Uschi Obermaier not only shook conservative German society but also the anti-establishment and… Exuding the sexy poutiness of a Teutonic Bridget Bardot gone wild and the underground glamor and bad-girl attitude of Kate Moss, with just a dash of Jane Fonda’s chic revolutionary zeal, Uschi Obermaier not only shook conservative German society but also the anti-establishment and feminist movements she became part of. The hippie nymph and successful model never let business get in the way of pleasure, flaunting her romances with the likes of Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Jimi Hendrix.
Obermaier was a teenage runaway from a small village who, after achieving early notoriety as a nude cover model for Stern (one of Germany’s leading magazines), became the it-girl of the Munich club scene. She soon joined Germany’s legendary and much-romanticized Kommune 1, famous for its strident anti-bourgeoisie way of life. This touch of radical chic worked wonders for her profile: Obermaier and boyfriend Rainer Langhans, leader of the commune, became the pin-up couple of the revolutionary left; Germany’s own John and Yoko.
Reviews
Achim Bornhak’s “Eight Miles High” is a shallow account of Obermaier’s drug- and booze-fueled early life. It follows Obermaier from the Munich suburb where she grew up (her mom calls her a “cheap little tart” and her dad says she “looks like a slut”) to her globe-trotting adventures (including a miscarriage) with German playboy Dieter Bockhorn.
The mythologizing of the ’60s gets a lusty, Germanic twist in “Eight Miles High,” a full-bodied take on the life of the world-class sex kitten Uschi Obermaier (Natalia Avelon). Directed by Achim Bornhak from a screenplay written with Olaf Kraemer, the movie follows, with refreshing lack of judgment and titillating brio, the überbohemian peregrinations of a wild child born to a drab Munich household but destined for flamboyant London orgies and spectacular third-world slumming.
If they gave out an Academy Award for Most Nudity, Natalia Avelon would win one for her almost always naked portrayal of Uschi Obermaier. And who exactly, you ask, was Uschi Obermaier? Only Germany’s most celebrated groupie in the Sixties, thank you very much. A gal famous for sleeping with such rock icons as Jimi Hendrix and The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards.
