Performance

Saw Performance, an extremely 60s film about a hit-man who lays low for a period at Mick Jagger's house. The film places much faith in the illuminating powers of drugs, sexuality is explored (but don't worry, only boobs are seen,) and droning music is blared. This is the 60s, ladies and gentlemen. I couldn't really follow the plot well. Identity is slightly fluid and many lines are mumbled beneath psychedelic rock. The film has a strange relationship with male homosexuality. The gangsters whom the hit-man is fleeing from have offices plastered with posters of boxers. Via jarring close-ups, the film implies that their appeal is more erotic than aesthetic. It seems like a slightly tacky attempt to use homosexuality to reenforce the decadence oft he gangsters, suggesting a negative attitude toward the homosexuality. Then again, later on Mick shows up in rouge and lipstick, looking remarkably like his flat-chested girlfriend. He is supposed to be some kind of self-awareness guru and this suggests a transgressive, liberating aspect to the gaiety.

The film is not really centrally about all of that, by the way, it's just what stuck out for me. The film is largely obtuse, confusing, and abrasive. It's quite a trip, just not one I understood much of.