Masquerading as a music documentary, Sympathy For The Devil is actually part fly-on-the-wall studio footage, part timely political document, and part ’60s euro art film kookfest. Footage of the Stones in Olympic Studios, working the title song up from a few chords and lyrics to the bongo-jamming stomper we all know and love, is intercut with abstract set pieces filled with political diatribe and shots of a woman in big sunnies spray-painting things like MAO with the A used to also vertically spell ART. Oh yes, and it’s all overlaid with the voice-over of a man who sounds somewhat like a high-pitched Richard Burton, reading from a salacious pulp novel, featuring such figures as Walt Disney and Kruschev thrusting their hard members into moist places.

For a Stones fan, the Olympic studios footage is priceless. It’s nothing unexpected; Mick acts like a prat, Keith is gloriously stoned and Wyman looks dour and shakes a maraca. But with the smooth, assured camerawork and rich, grainy colour of a European art film, it’s a joy to behold. As usual, Keith is the star, with some wonderful pirate shirts and stoned grooving, but it’s Brian Jones, obviously isolated, behind a wall of barriers strumming away at a guitar they aren’t even feeding into the mix, which leaves the most lasting impression. Though by most reports a thoroughly unscrupulous, despicable individual, you can’t help but feel for the man as he stands in a circle doing BV’s right next to Anita Pallenberg and Keith Richards, now thick as thieves a scant few weeks after she left Brian.

The aforementioned euro art film stuff is mildly amusing, but quite excruciating at length, and it makes up the majority of the running time. So go if you’re a Stones fan’but don’t say I didn’t warn you.