The Grand Illusion

See the legendary Tina Turner burn up the screen as the Acid Queen in Ken Russell’s bizarre, ineffably seedy and fetishistic rock opera TOMMY, based on The Who’s 1969 concept album, restored and in 4K.

After seeing his stepfather murder his father during an argument over his mother, young Tommy goes into shock, suddenly becoming psychosomatically deaf, dumb and blind. As a teenager, Tommy stumbles upon a pinball machine and discovers he is a natural prodigy at the game. Fame and fortune follow as Tommy (Roger Daltry) becomes a pinball champion and later the messiah of a religious cult, which views his pinball skills as a miraculous sign of divine intervention.

“When Brit cinema mostly opted for dullness, Ken Russell was showing us a film that was daring and risky and mad.” Peter Bradshaw, The Guardian

“Tina Turner’s Acid Queen sequence is a mini-masterpiece of visual inventiveness and dramatic cohesion, helped in no small measure by Turner’s extraordinary showmanship.” Jonathan Rosenbaum, Sight & Sound

“How many films can drench the shrill and rambunctious Ann-Margret in soap and beans and chocolate and get her an Oscar nomination? It’s that freakiness that’s both alienating and transfixing, and regardless of the film’s emotional elicitations, Tommy stays with you, stares you down, and can even haunt you.” Blake Goble, Consequence of Sound