Butler's Cinema Scene

Trine Dyrholm as Nico

“NICO, 1988” My rating: B

93 minutes | MPAA rating: R

The German model/singer Nico — real name Christa Paffgen — had her 15 minutes of fame in the late 1960s when Andy Warhol cast her as the blonde monotone figurehead of the Velvet Underground.

She really didn’t sing all that much — mostly she banged a tambourine and looked ethereal — but for a brief time she was the embodiment of cool Teutonic eroticism.

That’s not the Nico writer/director Susanna Nicchiarelli is interested in.  No, this  Nico is 20 years of hard living down the road, a bloated brunette addicted to heroin and pretty much pissed at everyone and everything.

Nicchiarelli’s docu-drama follows Nico in her last two years, when she toured Europe with a ragtag bunch of musicians in a broken-down van and worked hard at alienating anyone who cared about her.

As portrayed by Danish actress Trine Dyrholm, this Nico is no longer beautiful…but she’s a force of nature. Rebelling at being window dressing for other, better musicians, she is determined to live her life her way, even if it means (and it will) an early grave.

“Nico, 1988” unfolds as a series of one-night stands as the singer — who wants to be known by her real name but cannot outrun the Nico legend — alternately enthralls and alienates her audiences. When the mood is upon her she can be an arresting presence, prowling the stage and snarling out the lyrics to her compositions.  At other times she looks bored  and contemptuous.

Trine Dyrholm. John Gordon Sinclair

Life offstage is equally dramatic. Her British manager, Richard (John Gordon Sinclair, fondly recalled as a teenage Lothario in Bill Forsyth’s “Gregory’s Girl”), puts up with her bad temper, drug cravings and unrelenting cynicism because…well, because he’s in love with her.  Not that he has a chance in hell of seeing his affection reciprocated.

Instead he has the unhappy job of trying to find heroin for his star while touring behind the Iron Curtain; they barely make it out of Czechoslovakia with the secret police on their tails.

Richard’s frustration is made even worse by Nico’s dalliance with Domenico, an Italian who puts her up in his apartment when the band’s hotel bookings fall through.

About the only person Nico genuinely cares about is her son Ari (Sandor Funtek), locked up in permanent rehab. (The real Ari was the illegitimate and unrecognized son of French heartthrob Alain Delon…but his paternity isn’t mentioned in  the film.)

In the movie’s second half Nico takes a methadone cure and takes her offspring on the road…but you can imagine the temptations facing a weak-willed kid in this sort of chaotic environment.

“Nico, 1988” doesn’t really have a plot.  It’s sort of an endless tour of shabby venues and cheap lodgings. But Dyrholm’s monumental performance is so arresting that even if you can’t stand this Nico you will find yourself obsessed with her. Hers is simply one of the year’s best performances.

| Robert W. Butler