The Big Pink

The Big Pink is a portrait of a hippie family, including a lot of home movie style images. Monika is the central figure of the documentary. First she marries Franz, by whom she has three children. She then falls in love with Franz's best friend Adrian and, inspired by the film Jules et Jim, they start a triangle. Later Monika starts another relationship with Ekki, who also moves in with them. In the first half of the film the adults tell their story. With a certain resignation towards their complicated relationships, they point out especially the positive sides of being part of such a 'large and enjoyable family'. We get to know Monika as a woman who derived her identity from her men and children. The men admit that there had indeed been an unspoken power struggle which eventually caused the idyll to be disrupted. And yet they are still positive about the idea of living in a commune together with other people.