The life story of Christa Päffgen featured more sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll than those of all the artists who will perform at the Ancienne Belgique this year put together. The German bohemian was one of the women who gave Andy Warhol’s The Factory its mythical status and under the stage name Nico, she whispered her way into the history books as a singer for The Velvet Underground.
Listen to “Chelsea Girls”, “These Days”, or “Wrap your Troubles in Dreams” and you will realize that the femme fatale would have attained musical fame even without Lou Reed’s legendary band. This European biopic does not present her during her heyday in the Sixties, but in the last years of her life.
When journalists would ask her what it felt like to be a has-been and she performed in half-empty halls or dive bars, still struggling with her utterly unromantic heroin addiction and desperately trying to forge a relationship with the world-weary son who was the product of an affair with Alain Delon. T
he decision to focus on these years has its drawbacks, but the film hardly suffers from it thanks to its genuine interest in the woman behind the icon Nico and a remarkable performance by the Danish actress Trine Dyrholm, who sang all her own vocals.
Read more about: Film, nico, 1988
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