Can groovy VIPs live and die in glam vacuums? Yes, is the unsurprising, if unmeant, insight of this biopic about Uschi Obermaier (Natalia Avelon). Set in the go-go Euro-orbit of the swinging sixties and seventies, the originally titled “Das Wilde Leben” traces the life of a German teenager who hitchhikes to a Berlin commune, models for the magazines Stern and Sexy, fucks two of the Rolling Stones and travels the world for ten years in a luxury RV with self-styled adventurer Dieter Bockhorn (David Scheller). Don’t wait for The Byrd’s song in the American title. Director Achim Bornhak offers a period piece that ventures no ideas about his still-living subject. If her 1994 autobiography or screenwriter Olaf Kraemer’s 2007 book drew insights from her high living, this film discounts them. Obermaier’s only impulse was to free herself from straight-laced parents, sexist radicals and a movie contract with producer Carlo Ponti. What she did with her freedom is left unsaid. No one in the film can say anything about her except that she’s beautiful, and she has not much to say about anything. Nor does anyone making the film seem to have much to say about Obermaier, who helped Bornhak by letting Avelon live with her for a week to get in character. With Matthias Schweighofer, Victor Noren, Alexander Scheer, Friederike Kempter and Milan Peschel. 114m. (Bill Stamets)
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