Where & When: Nuart Theater, West Los Angeles, CA. August 8, 2018 7:20 PM
She was born Christa Päffgen in Cologne, Germany but would be later known to the world as Nico. Taking the name from her former filmmaker boyfriend, she first found success as a model before abandoning that occupation to try her hand at acting. Nico also achieved some minor success in films until she gravitated towards singing where she truly made a name for herself. After meeting Andy Warhol, he teamed her with a band he was managing at the time, the Velvet Underground and together recorded a self-titled debut album in 1967. The record was essentially ignored at the time of it's release but would go on to become a highly influential rock album.
With “Nico, 1988”, writer/director, Susanna Nicchiarelli examines the chaotic, final three years of the life of this iconic entertainer. Trine Dyrholm, an award-winning Danish actress who began her professional life as a singer while a teenager, delivers an explosive performance of the now weary and troubled, middle-aged vocalist and impresses further by vividly performing the songs we hear in the film. This winner of the Orrizonti Award for Best Film at the 2017 Venice Film Festival creates a fascinating intimate portrait of a performer trying to reclaim her voice as an artist and the narrative of her career on her terms.
The film begins in 1986 with Nico (Dyrholm), who lived a nomadic life which has taken her to Paris, London and New York, currently settled in Manchester, England. She has been trying to put some distance between her short-lived past with the Velvet Underground and have people focus on her current solo work yet not many are interested. With her glory days behind her, the singer travels around Europe in a run-down van with her scrappy band to play small venues set up her manager, Richard (John Gordon Sinclair). No longer the golden blonde siren, Nico has gone back to her natural mousey-brown hair coloring and her appearance has become hardened and sallow, largely due to her continuing heroin addiction.
It's not much of a surprise that Nico's conduct has become erratic and she's easily agitated which makes the outcome of her shows highly unpredictable. She is further distracted by wanting to see her son, Ari (Sandor Funtek) now complicated as he's been institutionalized because of his recent suicide attempt. Far from naturally maternal as Ari was given to be raised by his grandparents (the rumored father was French actor, Alain Delon who always publicly denied paternity) yet Nico still wanted to try to comfort her son, sensing the destructive nature he has inherited from her.
As she tours in a drug-fueled haze, it's not until they reach the Soviet Union-occupied Prague for a vaguely legal gathering of a concert that the singer has an awakening. Unable to bring her drugs across the border, a strung-out Nico becomes lucid enough to be able to deliver an electrifying performance. As she and Richard both become aware of this revelation, he offers to get her on a methadone treatment and Nico finally agrees.
While this would hardly appear to be the best period in the singer's story, Ms Nicchiarelli wanted to capture how performers, particularly female artists, are swiftly admired and adored yet can be discarded and forgotten just as fast. Nico's life and career may have spiraled out of control (largely by her own doing) but her talent is, while buried, still very much alive. The film also touches on Nico's traumatic childhood haunted by the devastating war in Germany. There is a clear connection with these difficult memories and the music the singer would later write, somber songs filled with despair and her vocals are wails of rage and pain.
Like many artists, Nico lived a life filled with creativity and recklessness. She could be brilliant and engaging yet also moody and downright unpleasant. With exceptional direction by Ms Nicchiarelli and a first-rate performance by Ms Dyrholm, "Nico, 1988" manages to take a seemingly questionable premise and effectively makes a fascinating study of a redemption of creative energy.
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