Documentary film “Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg” attempts to delve into the dramatic life story of Anita Pallenberg, a German-Italian model/actress who has mostly been known for her complicated personal relationship with the Rolling Stones. It is often fascinating for providing a close look into her tumultuous past mainly via her own words, but the documentary seems more interested in all those scandalous stuffs during her wild days than who she really was, and that is a shame in my humble opinion.

Mostly driven by the excerpts from Pallenberg’s unpublished memoir, which are narrated by Scarlett Johansson, the documentary tries to show us that Pallenberg was much more than the muse of the two key members of the Rolling Stones. Shortly after she was born into a sophisticated artist family in Italy, 1942, young Pallenberg went through a very hard time along with her family as the country and its people were frequently ravaged by the World War II, and that probably contributed to her wild temper and personality. As she admitted in her memoir, she was a frequent troublemaker during her childhood and adolescent years, and one of her old schoolmates gladly reminisces about their wild and reckless experiences during that period.

When she was only 19, Pallenberg decided to go to US for becoming an actress even though her parents were against her aspiration from the very beginning. Although she hardly could speak English, it did not take much time for her to draw more attention as a promising new European model to watch in New York City, and then she eventually appeared in several major films including “Barbarella” (1968), where she made a striking contrast with her co-star Jane Fonda.

Meanwhile, Pallenberg also got herself romantically involved with Brian Jones, who was one of the key members of the Rolling Stones during that time. While they seemed to click well with each other during next several years, things became quite troubling as they frequently abused alcohol and drugs just like the other members of the Rolling Stones. While they all simply wanted to have some fun and artistic inspiration, their substance abuse eventually became a very negative factor for all of them, and this surely affected Pallenberg’s relationship with Jones. As his substance abuse got worse and worse, Jones became quite estranged from not only Pallenberg but also his colleagues, and that consequently led to Pallenberg leaving him for one of his colleagues: Keith Richards.

In case of Richards, he looked like a more stable and suitable match for Pallenberg, but it turned out that he was just a little better than Jones, who subsequently died a few years later as continuing to struggle with his substance abuse problem. Along with Richards, Pallenberg kept going as before with their wild hedonistic lifestyle, and their substance abuse problem became worse and worse even as they came to have several kids between them.

Their eldest child Marlon Richards, who also serves as one of the executive producers of the documentary, willingly tells us about all those wild days of their parents during that time. Thanks to the immense success of the Rolling Stones, he and his younger sister Angela grew up in a fairly affluent environment where they could get whatever they wanted, but their parents were often not there for them as frequently being busy with their own matters including Richard’s band activities, and both of them naturally feel bitter about that even though they regard their parents with more understanding at present.

In the end, there eventually came a devastating personal incident which ultimately ended Pallenberg’s relationship with Richards and then drove her into more substance abuse during next several years. While it does not pull any punch at all in showing us how grim and gloomy her following downward spiral was, the documentary sadly does not show that much about how much she subsequently struggled to climb up from the bottom of her addiction problem. It just briefly shows how she eventually became much happier as getting more control on her own life, and this feels like a perfunctory footnote instead of illuminating her more as a survivor who deserves more interest and attention from us.

Needless to say, directors/producers Alexis Bloom and Sveltlana Zill clearly respect their human subject, and they did a fairly good job of mixing various archival elements along with a number of interview clips and Pallenberg’s words, but their result still cannot help but drawn more to how much she suffered than how she endured and prevailed in the end. As a result, we do not get to know Pallenberg that much as a person, and the documentary only ends up looking more like another typical cautionary entertainment business tale.

Overall, “Catching Fire: The Story of Anita Pallenberg” enlightened me to some degree about what has been rather unfamiliar to me, but I wish the documentary showed more of why Pallenberg was too distinctive and talented to be merely remembered as a woman who just happened to be involved with one of the most famous bands in the 20th century. No, the documentary is not entirely pointless at least as revealing a lot about her personal involvement with the Rolling Stones, and you may have to check it out if you do not know much about Pallenberg like I did before watching it, but I still believe that there is a more insightful one somewhere in the documentary.