7Roulette - PERFORMANCE

It's genuinely painful & perplexing when the most talented artists that are still living seldom work - especially the ones you idolize & find inspiration in. My most beloved filmmakers are the 'jack-of-all-trades' or auteurs. Performance sinks of Nicolas Roeg's sweat & I wanna roll around in it. Watching this film is a spiritual experience in its craft & storytelling delivering a love letter to its time with one of the 1970s greatest iconic symbols in a leading role. From the first scene the film is stroking you with its rich & disorienting editing & photography that never lapses, leading you to one of the greatest climaxes of your life. So grab some tissues & turn up your TV because you're in for an explosion of the senses. A+

- Jess

People like to throw around "dated" like it's a curse word. & maybe it is - maybe art should have no relevance to past, present, or future. Though, I think when people use it, it's born out of an insistence that all things must retain relevance to the present - something I find to be a sickening redundancy.

Something I've always found fascinating are films released upon the turn of a decade, because despite quality, genre, nationality, & any other particulars you can think of, the film, whatever it may be, encapsulates the ten years leading up to it, and the ten years to follow. Performance, released in 1970 (though produced in '68, which does tend to blur the lines a bit further) reaches back & grabs toppings & ingredients from French New Wave & Italian Neorealism, uses the current "relevant" incorporation of rock n' roll & experimental cinematography, & acts as a jumping-off point for the abstract narrative. Past. Present. Future. It's the American gangster picture, filtered through the French gangster picture. Who wouldn't like that? B+

- Paul