Rating: R
Genre:
Avant-garde / Exp
Release Date: 02/13/2007
SubTitles: English
Dubbed: English
Sound: DD1
Run Time: 105 Minutes
Distributor/Studio: Warner Home Video
Even in an era of cinematic experimentation,
Performance stands out as a visually daring major-studio film that deals with questions of sanity and identity rarely touched on in mainstream filmmaking. The elements of
Performance certainly looked attractive to studio executives at
Warner Bros. -- a gangster on the lam hides out in the home of a reclusive
rock star -- especially since that musician was being played by
Mick Jagger of
the Rolling Stones. But co-directors
Nicolas Roeg (who also photographed) and
Donald Cammell (who wrote the screenplay) had much more in mind than a walk on the wild side of swinging London.
Chas (
James Fox) is a sadistic thug who gains our sympathies only because men even crueler than he are out to kill him. After
Chas arrives at the mansion occupied by
Turner (
Jagger) and his female companions
Pherber (
Anita Pallenberg) and
Lucy (
Michele Breton), what looks like a decadent idyll fueled by drugs and group sex turns into a series of mind games in which
Turner challenges
Chas' sexual preference and core identity. Even the film's one musical number,
"Memo From Turner," is a
William Burroughs-like monologue in which
Turner fantasizes taking over
Chas' role as a mobster, spewing insults to his colleagues. The film's cult status has been fueled by subsequent films of its co-directors (for
Roeg,
Walkabout,
The Man Who Fell to Earth, and
Don't Look Now; for
Cammell,
White of the Eye), which explored similar themes employing the same kind of jagged editing and striking visuals.
~ Tom Wiener, All Movie Guide
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