Director: Nicolas Roeg, Donald Cammell
Actors: James Fox, Mick Jagger, Anita Pallenberg
Date: 1970
How viewed: Lovefilm rental
Rating: 5/5
David Meyer says:
.. Jagger plucks a funereal boogie on an acoustic guitar .. it's eerie, sexy and cool, just like the film. Mind-blowing in more ways than one.
I say:
Yet another completely unexpected treat! This popped through the letterbox from Lovefilm a couple of weeks ago and I just didn't have the energy to watch it. I was sure I'd seen it around the time it came out, and that I hadn't been impressed, and was expecting it to be something of a vehicle for Jagger. I couldn't have been more wrong! The first half concerns a sort of London mafia protection racket, in which James Fox plays an enforcer who eventually takes things a bit too far, and has to disappear. By chance he holes up in the house of a faded rock star (Jagger) and his lover (Pallenberg) and their interaction, along with the sex and drugs, slowly unwinds Fox, until his identity start to become confused with Jagger's. Actually I don't know what it's all about - the reviews talk of identity and sexual proclivities - but it's both gangster film and psychedelic trip - and there's enough sex, drugs, and rock n roll, and violence, to keep everyone happy! Jagger is fantastic, the editing (especially the first 15 or so minutes) is wild, there's no concessions to the audience to explain anything, there are some completely strange aspects (the housekeepers seem to be a couple of children) and evocative ad hoc images (street scenes of late 60's London), and you have no idea what's going to happen next. Excellent!PS worth noting that Big Audio Dynamite's great song 'E=MC2' (which was inspired by Nic Roeg films) contains lots of references and sound clips from Performance:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E%3DMC2_(song)
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