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Rating: Sadism - Performance
(1973)
Directed by Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg.
An acidic version of Ingmar Bergman's Persona, that's how we could define Sadism or rather Performance - a much more interesting original title compared to the Italian one, which is more moralistic and misleading about the true meaning of the film. This 1973 film features the exuberant Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger as one of its protagonists, playing an ex-rockstar hiding from the world in an anonymous building on the British outskirts with two groupies, lots of hallucinogens, Borges books that frequently appear in the protagonists' conversations - and a mysterious esoteric aura influenced by Eastern philosophies and the thought of Aleister Crowley - was created by the controversial British directors Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg. The first collaborated on Lucifer Rising with satanist director Kenneth Anger, the second is remembered for "The Man Who Fell to Earth" with the alien rockstar David Bowie and for "Walkabout." With an alternated, often neurotic editing style in perfect free cinema style, and with references to Anger's poetic style and his "Scorpio Rising," this bizarre and fascinating work was originally a colossal flop, too many sex scenes with bisexuality and androgyny rampant - which Mario Mieli would discuss a few years later in his unforgettable essay "Elements of Homosexual Critique" in response to social censorship of sexuality that opposed the sexual liberation movements of the time. Becoming a cult in the nineties and widely reassessed by critics who originally tore it apart without mercy, Performance suffers from putting too many narrative elements on the plate and getting lost in its musings about life, human nature, and its fluid, surprising gender, but still manages to be a magnetic work for the viewer who, attracted by its eccentricity, can't help but empathize with the homophobic Chad, a handsome criminal halfway between Alain Delon and Jean-Paul Belmondo, who after crossing his bosses - whose homosexuality is often ironically revealed to the audience - hides in a basement where Turner, a rockstar who has lost the demon of inspiration, and his beautiful lovers live. Chad is immediately attracted by the sexual freedom with which the protagonist lives his relationships with the two women, but is especially intrigued by the way Turner expresses his male and female sides. Chad represents in a way the homophobic and patriarchal society that encounters the freedom of the '68 youth, finding itself bewildered, trying to repudiate it in every way but ultimately falling victim to it, as if there were a higher plan, that of human impulses which act as a spell on man. Thus, Chad feels more attracted to Turner, wants to possess him, wants to become him. The awakening of his female side, the unconscious awareness of having been victim to Turner's witchcraft and his "witches" will lead him, however, to an extreme gesture, because the feminine side of a gangster must be silenced, it cannot come to light.
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