Life is one giant performance. Shakespeare’s old adage about
the world being a stage is accurate. We act differently around different
people, and we change our mannerisms or appearances to impress or deceive
individuals. Performance is about this performance, but it’s also about other
performances. It regards a low level gangster, Chas (James Fox), who takes out
his sadism as a piece of performance art on the individuals who’ve crossed the
criminal outfit he works for. When his boss seeks to rub him out, Chas goes out
on the lam and hides out in a bohemian pad, inhabited by Turner (an electrifying performance by Mick Jagger),
a musician, a performer you might say, who quickly sees through the fake
persona Chas has adopted in hiding. Chas might be gay, and this adds another
layer to the film’s thematic interrogation: Isn’t hiding your homosexuality a
type of performance, posturing hyper-masculinity to feel safe and hidden. As
Turner deconstructs Chas’ many performances, reality begins to breakdown and
their identities blend together. The film is like Persona filtered through the late
swinging 1960’s milieu. But even this sells it short; Performance is a deeply
experimental film, as much about experience as narrative. Frantically paced and edited, it is a film that feels surprisingly modern, a precursor to music videos and jumpy action blockbusters, where its finger prints can be seen all over.
Grade: B+
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