Performance could be the ultimate Emperor's New Clothes movie. It could be a trippy, surreal but ultimately vacuous exercise in style over content from which unintended layers of meaning and allusion can be divined. It could be Chauncey Gardiner as a film, I'm absolutely aware of that. But I'm going to follow my instinct that it isn't. And, furthermore, even if it is I'm going to say that the allegorical nature of the film is no less valid if it is unintentional anyway. Why should it be?
The film opens in the brutal world of London gangsters with Chas (an utterly fantastic James Fox performance) and we get about half an hour of a fast-paced gritty crime drama in the vein of Get Carter or Villain but then suddenly lurches head-first into a psychedelic acid nightmare full of "long-hairs, druggers, beatniks and foreigners" blurring the lines between reality and surreality. In exactly the same way that Chas gets discombobulated by what he experiences, so does the viewer. The resulting confusion is deliberate as the two worlds are shown as more similar than they are different. The integration of the two worlds occurs by allusion during the magnificent 'Memo From Turner' sequence and then in actuality.
The blending of identities and merging of entities is a recurrent theme. Chas and Turner, the hedonistic rock star in seclusion played by Mick Jagger, are increasingly shown as similar below their surface differences, they could almost be a masculine and feminine version of the same person. That duality is expressed in many ways; both literally (swapping styles of dress, superimposed faces etc) and by suggestion ("there's nothing wrong with me...I'm normal"). In fact the whole film investigates this identity confusion: there are mirrors and juxtaposed faces, picture disappear from frames between shots, sexual confusion, androgyny, altered perceptions, sanity and insanity, domination and submission, appearance changes and role swapping. Throughout the gangland scenes the phrase "it's not a takeover, it's a merger" is repeated and, in the end, we are presented with the surreal merging of people- Turner becomes Lucy, Chas becomes Turner, Turner becomes Chas. This bizarre distillation of Borgesian confusion is both challenging and illuminating.
As a film, as a piece of entertainment, I would imagine that Performance might be considered a failure. There is no obvious hero or villain, no linear narrative, no clear outcome and the performances range from Fox's coruscating portrayal of Chas to Pallenberg's patchy and uneven Pherber. As a work of art, however, it is outstanding. And the soundtrack is incredible.
And- finally- everyone should own a copy of Happy Mondays' Bummed which samples this film's dialogue heavily.
