Eight Miles High: German DVD Review

Uschi. Her name is uttered over and over again by her medley of partners in the film, who seem well aware, and in occasional despair, of the force they seem to come under by being her lover.

One partner in the film perhaps sums it up best in determining Uschi as a witch. It's as if Uschi's mere presence and glance casts magic and the men who choose to face off with her best have a bit of sorcery in their dealings as well. This particular natural form of raw beauty also spelled success for Uschi Obermaier's rise as a fashion model and clearly a sector of the public was under her spell as well.

A viewer like myself can't really help but completely adore the lead actress and become curious about the actual woman she is portraying in this 2007 German production. Eight Miles High (Das wilde Leben) chronicles the wild, young days of glamor girl, fashion model and revolutionary icon Uschi Obermaier's. A sumptuous Natalie Avelon is cast in the main role, portraying a woman who reveled in her role as sex symbol, sought to experience the free love so quintessential of the era and who was unwilling to be tethered in any way. She is utterly unapologetic about the independent courses she chooses to take from the start of the film when, as in life, she runs away from her overbearing, disgraced parents and her Munich home to start a life of her own choosing. Smoldering, pouty and unselfconscious in abundant nudity, Avelon's screen depiction of Uschi combines a worldliness with a certain naïve carelessness.

Obermaier's involvement in Berlin's notorious "Kommune 1" is depicted as at apparent odds with her profession as a successful and adored model. What the movie portrays of her position in the late 60's left wing movement in German is a laissez faire involvement and cheerful apolitical stance. Uschi likes freedom, period. And while the commune offered that for a time, her inevitable fame and globetrotting ways led her onwards and outwards, namely into a relationship with a wealthy eccentric, a romance we witness develop in all it's passionate and chaotic turns through much of the film. With this romance, the film depicts a match made in archetypal heaven- a fierce Dionysus with an untamed Aphrodite.

Uschi's professional success, wild ways and free spirit were precisely what defined her as an icon of the era, and the movie does justice in tracking her rise to fame as well as her passionate approach to her romances and her life. Visually, it's a fun picture and Avelon's ease and beauty are a huge contributing factor. While lambasted by many American movie critics, one should remember that we're not watching a political tale or dramatic biopic but the story of a glamor "bad girl" who took rock and roll stars, globetrotters, and leftist activists as lovers and basked in the spotlight and public eye.

I hadn't heard of Uschi Obermaier prior to seeing this film. But I love a biography, no matter how many fictionalized scenes it contains, that inspires you to go to the archives, to look at the historical photos of the individual and to read on for the truth of the character and the era and events they were involved in. For a taste of the bohemian wild and sexy, and a little bit of history, Eight Miles High is an alluring watch and a pretty rockin' ride.