Nico, 1988

I rated this 8/10. Maybe I should have rated it higher. There are parts of this film that I am not sure if they are flawed or genius. A bit like Nico's ouevre, so that is perhaps appropriate. I was utterly transfixed for the duration of the movie. And yet by what I do not know. Relatively little happens. There are long silences. Yet both what is said and not said manages to restlessly slip away from cliche, and at the end I felt like I understood something I did not understand before. I am not sure who I could recommend this film to, yet I feel like I experienced something masterful

No music and scenes from Lou Reed and Velvet Underground years, the movie is entirely dedicated to the last years of Nico's life, and in particular to her last and sad tour in Europe. Susanna Nicchiarelli portrays the former model and Andy Warhol's muse in her painful and problematic adult phase, which sees her tired and dissatisfied, desperate to break free from her drug and success past, when she was beautiful but not happy. A crude and bleak portrait, which Dyrholm renders fully convincing.

A strong biographical drama portraying the last years of singer Nico, former Velvet Underground. It develops well her uneasy character, her personal relations, her artistic view. The movie is good in all technical traits. However, what is impossible not to highlight is the outstanting performance by Tirine Dyrholm. He is simply amazing in the leading role, showing all the anger, sadness, impatience, impulsiveness, sometimes vatious of these feelings at once! As I read in two otber review, if the world were better (or if Acadeny Awards were serious), she would have certainly won the Oscar as the best actress.

Bookended by a radio interview in which German gothmother Nico likens eighties Manchester to postwar Berlin; dwelling upon her final years as a self-confessed "fat old junkie" with only fleeting flashbacks to her days as Andy Warhol's muse (her participation in 'La Dolce Vita' isn't even mentioned), the portrait that emerges is more like that of a punk rocker than of a hippy.

With a cigarette permenantly hanging from her lips Trine Dyrholm's throaty rendition of her songs give them a resonance similar to the latter day Marianne Faithfull. (To my untutored ear the way she croaks her way through 'Nature Boy' supplies a poignancy similar to Claire Trevor singing 'Moanin' Low' in 'Key Largo'.)

"Nico Icon" (1995) ,a documentary, was a movie which could not thoroughly satisfy Nico's fans cause the essential,that is to say,the musical side ,was minimal .Both her short stint with the Velvet Underground and her solo career were botched.This work was centered ,in fact,on the son the artist would have had with French star Alain Delon ,a fact which remains uncertain even today and even though the actor's family did take on the child .

There's a very brief hint at a"French actor" in the 2017 movie. "Nico ,1988" is a different matter ,because it deals with the last months of the artist : a poor epitaph ,a sad and tatty end of a singer who was once associated with one of rock's most influential albums ("the V.U. and Nico°,though gossips keep on repeating her creative role was minor,which is not entirely false)

Based on true accounts from people who were around , "Nico 1988" is a gloomy but credible crepuscular biopic ;it seems that, in the eighties, Nico made an attempt at a more palatable (I would not write"commercial" ) ,more "rock " music ;in the seventies ,she would perform with her harmonium -she notably performed in a cathedral , an ideal background for this ghostly ,spectral music ; the treatment of "all tomorrow's parties ",a song she recorded with the V.U. ,makes her music more accessible and more exciting than the haunting but a bit droning sound (her approach of the German National Anthem was impressive though and John Cale 's production of her cover of the Doors' 'the end' helped );and on her tunes,notably "janitor of lunacy" ,the updating is effective and welcome ;this one effortlessly supersedes the studio version.

She would retain a certain cult in Europa and it shows ,,and her before mentioned son ,Ari , appears and is proud of her mother (the 1995 doc showed a young man who would despise his adoptive mother ,which was off-putting); her choice to perform behind the Iron Curtain was as adequate as the cathedral of the seventies .

Tryne Dyrholm 's performance is perfect;she convincingly portrays a jaded faded singer, ravaged by drugs ; her death is given a very proper treatment.