/ Trine Dryholm as gloomy punk diva Nico in the biopic Nico, 1988 /
My quick reflections on Nico, 1988, the
2017 biopic about the chain-smoking, heroin-ravaged and wraith-cheekboned German
punk chanteuse Nico (1938 – 1988) starring Danish actress Trine Dryholm and
directed by Susanna Nicchiarelli. As the title suggests, the movie focuses on the final year of the down-on-her-luck former Warhol Superstar's life, when she was touring the dives of Europe doing desultory concerts. (I streamed it on More4 Saturday night.
If you’re curious to see it, don’t delay – it’s going to get deleted from the
platform soon!).
I’ve been a Nico obsessive since I was a teenager,
but I approached the film with an open mind. (It received a decidedly mixed
reception). Good or bad, for me Nico, 1988 was bound to be fascinating.
What mainly struck a wrong note for me: when
Nico angrily snaps at a journalist, “Don’t call me Nico. Call me by my real
name – Christa!” The film seemingly implies she resented the persona of “Nico”
being imposed on her and yearned to return to her “true self” Christa again.
But I’ve never read anything to support this assertion and doubt Nico ever said
it. It was her mentor the German fashion photographer Herbert Tobias who first bestowed
the mononym “Nico” on her in the fifties when she was a 16-year old model and
she kept it for the rest of her life. From what I’ve gathered, she disliked her
real name (Christa Päffgen) anyway, feeling it was bourgeois and “too German”
and preferred the air of mystery and androgyny that “Nico” provided.
The script crams-in lots of awkward
exposition (like Nico bringing-up the subject of her childhood, for example, or
that her son Ari was fathered by actor Alain Delon) in an unnatural way to
fill-in the gaps. Nico, 1988 frequently displays a shaky and selective grasp of
the facts. (Which is true of all biopics, to be fair).
/ Trine Dryholm as Nico /
According to the script, Nico spoke in “profound”
show business platitudes (“I’ve been on the top. I’ve been on the bottom. Both
places are empty”) worthy of Helen Lawson or Neely O’Hara in Valley of the
Dolls.
The film uncritically buys into the popular
cliché that Nico “deliberately” made herself ugly later in life (“Am I ugly?
Good! I wasn’t happy when I was beautiful”). Nico was always deeply
image-conscious, there’s no shortage of examples of her on the record fretting
about gaining weight, and for someone “unconcerned” about her appearance Nico was
remarkably devoted to black eyeliner and mascara right to the end.
Nico’s touring band contains a female Romanian violinist called Sylvia. I could be wrong, but I don’t think Nico’s backing group ever featured
a female musician (she was notorious for her antipathy towards other women). There’s
a half-hearted fabricated subplot about a doomed romance between Sylvia and another of Nico’s heroin-addicted musicians which seems to get dropped
mid-way through. This creates the impression Nicchiarelli was unsure if Nico’s
own story sufficiently was interesting.
/ Director Susanna Nicchiarelli and leading lady Trine Dryholm /
When Nico embarks on her final, fatal bicycle
journey in Ibiza on that fateful day in July 1988 (en route to buy marijuana,
she suffers a heart attack, crashes her bike and dies of a cerebral hemorrhage),
she should be seen winding a black scarf around her head first. Filmmaker Paul
Morrissey would later rail something like it was “those damn black rags” Nico
insisted on wearing that caused her death.
Actually, the sartorial styling is always a bit “off”:
Nico’s sunglasses should be butch mirrored aviators. She should be sporting a keffiyeh scarf. They still
depict Nico wearing the long brown boots she was wearing around the time of her Marble
Index album in the late sixties. By the eighties, Nico had long since discarded
them for black leather motorcycle boots, always left unbuckled. To their
credit, the signature punk-y skull-studded black leather wristband Nico wore in
the eighties is well represented.
/ The skull wristband! Worn by the actual Nico (above) and Dryholm (below) /
There are some inexplicable musical choices.
I can possibly understand why Nico is depicted huskily warbling Nat King Cole’s
"Nature Boy” in a hotel lobby backed by jazz musicians in Italy. She
recorded the jazz standard “My Funny Valentine” on her final album in 1985. Maybe they
couldn’t afford the rights to that song? But why does Dryholm croon the 1984 single
“Big in Japan” by Alphaville over the closing credits? It has zero connection
with Nico.
/ Trine Dryholm as Nico /
At its weakest, Nico, 1988 sometimes looks
and feels like a French and Saunders parody. There could have been more moments
of absurd black tragi-comedy. Dryholm never quite nails the cadaverous and macabre
Morticia Addams-like aspect of Nico’s demeanor. She should have been even more
perverse, morbid and inscrutable! But maybe Nicchiarelli feared that would make
her unsympathetic?
What the makers of Nico, 1988 got right:
Nico’s grubby indifference to hygiene (her
former lovers recall she preferred spraying herself with perfume rather than
bathing). “Don’t worry, sir,” Nico explains to her new landlord in Manchester
when he explains how the boiler works. “I take showers very rarely.”
Sandor Funtek is perfectly cast as Ari
(Nico’s profoundly troubled son) and his scenes with Dryholm (when Nico belatedly
attempts to compensate for her prolonged absences during his childhood) are
moving. They even got the birthmark on his forehead right!
In truth, Dryholm never really resembles
Nico (she looks more like Helen Mirren. Or as Variety’s critic puts it, she “looks
like a long-black-haired, coldly fierce erotic-zombie version of Roseanne Barr”).
Nor does she attempt to emulate Nico’s inimitable Germanic vampire priestess
Voice of Doom. But you can’t fault her intensely committed, starkly unglamorous
portrayal and her re-interpretations of Nico’s songs are powerful. And Dryholm intermittently
captures Nico’s Night of the Living Dead thousand-yard death glare. I especially liked
the wired and jittery soundcheck performance of “All Tomorrow’s Parties.”
Ultimately, Nico, 1988 is a sympathetic and
well-intentioned low budget labour of love and a noble enterprise for both Nicchiarelli
and Dryholm. Let’s face it: it’s impressive Nico, 1988 even got made. If this biopic leads to anyone discovering Nico’s haunting and uncompromised musical vision,
that can only be a good thing.
Further reading:
I’ve blogged about the Nico - the Marlene Dietrich of punk / Edith Piaf of the Blank Generation - many times: her contemporary Marianne Faithfull reflects on Nico; the historic encounter When John Waters Met Nico; Nico’s 1960s modelling days; how the old jazz standard “My Funny Valentine” (and heroin) connects Nico with Chet Baker; and When Patti Smith Met Nico; Nico's influence on Leonard Cohen.
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