Catching Fire 16DLSV

“I loved the feeling of culture exploding”, says legendary actress, model, and artist Anita Pallenberg in this extraordinary documentary about her life, based on an unpublished autobiography found after her death in 2017. It is a phrase that applies equally to the film, which channels her iconoclastic spirit in its rhythms and aesthetic. Pallenberg was a massive star in the 60s and 70s, but she had already established her place in the counterculture even before that. From meeting Andy Warhol when she first arrived in New York to her relationship with the Rolling Stones’ Brian Jones and Keith Richards, her story is a portal into a world that has long since passed but whose influence lives on everywhere. It is Pallenberg’s words, though, voiced by an actress, that define the film and ensure that its explosion of culture coheres. Sparse, witty, cutting, and engagingly honest, they help us to see why the world fell in love with Anita Pallenberg.