“My earliest memories are hearing airplanes dropping bombs. I didn’t learn to walk, I ran.”
How do you describe the indescribable? How do you mythicise the mythical? How do you recount a life so turbulent and momentous in the space of 2 hours? Directed by Alexis Bloom and Svetlana Zill, Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg manages to do all that, and more. It’s a passionate account of a woman who scorched and blazed her way through the ebb and flows of sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll. A woman who was a lover to the lucky and a muse to the inspired, but ultimately a beloved mother and cherished friend to those who stuck by her side through it all.
The documentary style mirrors Pallenberg’s essence: it’s nuanced, deeply evocative, and exists in a deep well of sensitivity and empathy. Through an array of archival footage, heartfelt testimonies from her inner circle, intimate 8mm home videos, and formerly unseen photographs, Bloom and Zill denounce years of ruthless media storms and false accusations surrounding Pallenberg and tenderly humanise the ‘It Girl’ who has been so painfully overlooked.
Born under the blaze of warfare in 1942 to a sophisticated German family in Rome, Pallenberg rose from the ashes to become a model, an aspiring actor, and part of Andy Warhol’s Factory crowd all within the formative years of her life. Impressively multilingual and decreasingly camera shy, she was discovered by German director Volker Schlöndorff and went on to star in a myriad of avant-garde films, most notably opposite Jane Fonda in Barbarella (1968). An epochal moment in her life was when she met the Rolling Stones backstage after a concert in Munich, Germany in 1965. From that day onwards, she was tautly entwined in the tongue and lips of rock’s most iconic. However, you can’t always get what you want; she was mistreated by Brian Jones, neglected by Keith Richards, and had to reject advances from Mick Jagger. In Catching Fire, Richards is interviewed about their tempestuous relationship. Through hard drug charges, harrowing addiction, disorderly co-parenting, and grief, it remains clear that their relationship was ultimately founded on adoration and love, he remarks that he was “bursting in love” with Pallenberg praising her “amazing eye”.
The directors state that “it’s a film about family, made by family”. Marlon Richards, the son of Richards and Pallenberg, found out she had written a secret memoir whilst clearing out her London home with his children, two years after Pallenberg’s death in 2017. Proposing the idea to Bloom and Zill, Marlon yearned for his mother’s story to be unveiled in all its intricacy and nuance. With excerpts from her personal manuscript littered throughout the documentary, read evocatively by none other than Scarlett Johansson, we watch Pallenberg evolve and mature through life’s grievances and shortcomings. It is gratifying to hear her perspective and the film allows Pallenberg to posthumously ruminate on and resolve years of damaging experiences and incorrect recounts of her story.
Catching Fire concludes with a captivating hope, Pallenberg fought for years with just about everything bad in this world but nevertheless emerged mighty. Her later life saw her get clean, study fashion textile design in her 40s, become best friends with Kate Moss, return to modelling and acting, and reforge connections with her children. In spite of it all, it’s transparent that she never ceased to surprise and evoke, as said by Richards she “created this anarchy that we needed”, her enduring legacy will persist as a flame that will never extinguish; she’s a wick with infinite glow.
Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg is in selected UK cinemas from 17th May.