Performance (1970)

Synopsis: Chas (James Fox), a low-level gangster, fouls up a job and finds himself on the bad side of the Organization. Suddenly on the run, he dyes his hair with red paint, calls his Mum, and starts looking for a place to hide. When Chas overhears a bohemian type describe his vacant room, his scheming mind... Chas (James Fox), a low-level gangster, fouls up a job and finds himself on the bad side of the Organization. Suddenly on the run, he dyes his hair with red paint, calls his Mum, and starts looking for a place to hide. When Chas overhears a bohemian type describe his vacant room, his scheming mind immediately seizes upon an idea, and he seeks out the boarding house as a supposed friend of the former tenant. He's given refuge in the home of reclusive, aging rock star Turner (Mick Jagger) and his lovely sidekick Pherber (Anita Pallenberg) by pretending to be a performer himself, with the ludicrous story of being a professional juggler who never once demonstrates his skills. Soon, Chas the macho mobster gets drawn into the daily life of the strange household. Upon the innocent ingestion of mind-expanding mushrooms, he finds his beliefs and his sense of identity completely undermined, as Turner and Pherber try to discover exactly what Chas's performance is hiding. Awash with ambiguous and graphic sexuality, inventive camerawork, and lush 1970s velvet-and-mirrors production design, PERFORMANCE trips along to a rock & roll soundtrack while asking the heavy questions of identity and gender which society at large was asking after the explosive excess of the 1960s. [More]