The terrifying magnetism of Anita Pallenberg – the German actor, model, style icon, muse and, according to some, murderer who dated two Rolling Stones and epitomised rock chick cool – is captured in Alexis Bloom’s suitably enigmatic documentary portrait. Composed of interviews with those in Pallenberg’s orbit, and home movies that crackle with chaotic energy, Catching Fire is more concerned with the mercurial essence of its subject than it is with the nuts and bolts of her life. We learn little, for example, about her family background.
But Pallenberg was, it becomes clear, a self-created creature; a woman who kicked back with equal force against the restrictive gender roles prevalent in 60s and 70s society, and against the misogyny of the music scene. The girlfriend of Brian Jones, then Keith Richards, with whom she had three children, she did everything on her own terms; be it acting (Performance, Barbarella) or parenting, her approach was unconventional. But even Pallenberg’s formidable strength of character was no match for the drugs that were ubiquitous in the world in which she moved.