Opening this week at the newly renovated Film Forum (209 Houston Street) is a stunning bio-pic of the thorny later days of former Velvet Underground chanteuse Nico (played with blazing fury by Danish actress Trine Dyrholm).
Focusing on the rocky tour with a new band (one even more dope sick than Nico), the harried British manager (John Gordon Sinclair) tries to keep things together and keep supplying Nico with the heroin she needs to keep going. What the movie does so expertly is show Nico’s demons but also her humor and humanity.
A full throttled performance at an unsanctioned concert in a Communist country is electrifying. There is bracing dark humor in director Susanna Nicchiarelli’s knockout of a film.
Ironically, I was traveling with a theater group in Europe the same time Nico was performing that infamous tour and ended up seeing her often. Hunched over her harmonium she was the ultimate goth goddess, and her droning, nihilistic version of Jim Morrison’s The End was thrilling as it was grim. She was riveting on stage, and it was hypnotic to watch her as she sang.
I adored Nico, more for her solo career, and especially the many records she did with John Cale. Her discs were small transgressive masterpieces- they reflected her gloomy world view, but at times were filled with a heart-breaking, dark romanticism.
