Nico, 1988 (Susanna Nicchiarelli, 2017)

The German singer Nico, much to her chagrin, was - and is - best known for her work with the Velvet Underground; 1967's The Velvet Underground and Nico (yes, the one with the banana on the cover) is a seminal work widely regarded as one of the greatest albums of all time.  Nico, 1988 is a Belgian co-production - filmed in English - which concentrates on the last two years of the singer's life which, somewhat bizarrely, saw the onetime member of Andy Warhol's crowd set up camp in the northwest of England.  From this unlikely base, the film follows Nico as she embarks on a series of European dates which are, at best, spottily attended.  Backed by a ragtag band of musicians who, by the singer's own admission, are a bunch of hopeless junkies, Nico's live performances see the singer operate in one of two modes: indifferent or angry.

As with the bulk of her backing band, Nico (Danish actress Trine Dyrholm, terrific) has a taste for heroin and does not take particularly good care of herself.  Haunted by the memory of the son she only had a small part in raising, she seems bent on self-destruction, and making music doesn't give her the outlet or satisfaction she so desperately needs.  The ex-model has no trouble attracting men, and at least two of her entourage become smitten with her, but these dalliances appear to be no more fulfilling to Nico than anything else her life has to offer.  One of these suitors, her makeshift manager Richard, goes above and beyond the call of duty when he proves instrumental in reuniting Nico with her son Ari, who is both a grown man and extremely troubled.

Anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of Nico will know that this doesn't end well for her; while Nico, 1988 is not the most flattering portrait of the singer, we do get to see a real human being trying to break through the haughty sense of entitlement, and Nico's maternal instincts work to show her at her best.  Ari himself is a likeable sort, but even though he didn't have much to do with his mother while growing up, he obviously has a similar, if more vulnerable, personality to the woman who gave birth to him (while the film mentions he was raised in France by his paternal grandparents, it fails to name the father: French superstar Alain Delon).

Of course, Nico was never much of a singer, and her insistence that people stop referring to her Velvets/Warhol work only highlights the thin and patchy nature of her solo efforts.  Her stance is one that we've seen many a time: the star who distances themselves from what it was that made them famous (and continues to be the source of any present interest).  Nico's contempt for virtually all around her (barring Ari) is a textbook example of someone who can't really come to terms with the fact that her fame is both in the past and down to others.  She - as her erstwhile mentor would have put it - had her 15 minutes; the real problem was what to do with all the years after that time.

Nico, 1988 in some ways recalls London Town from last year's LFF: both films give a snapshot of the life of a music icon (in London Town's case, Joe Strummer was the star in question), and the films share a similar ramshackle charm which greatly helps an imperfect movie become a hugely enjoyable cinema experience.  John Gordon Sinclair - an always likeable presence - fumbles terribly with an accent that seesaws between Rochdale and Rutherglen, but such problems don't distract from the fun.  Strange to think that a film about the last days of a heroin addict might be described as "fun", but this really is a warm, highly watchable piece of cinema.  It plays at the London Film Festival on the 14th and 15th of October.

Darren Arnold

Image: Celluloid Dreams

Quality Time (Daan Bakker, 2017)

While it misses more often than it hits, Daan Bakker's portmanteu film is nothing if not original, and it would have made for a far bolder choice for the Netherlands' submission to the Oscars; although shortlisted, Quality Time lost out to the rather pedestrian Layla M.  Bakker's film contains five separate stories, each of which features a different man and his own crisis, and, as is the case with many anthology films, the quality of the segments is far from consistent.

The first, and best, section features Koen, a man who is tired of the regular family gatherings where he's unfailingly called on to devour ham and guzzle milk as some sort of party piece.  Koen's "act" greatly amuses all but himself, and the section follows him from dreading the occasion to going through the motions at the event.  Koen is represented by a white dot not dissimilar to the ball in early videogame Pong, and he speaks in a robotic monotone.  As his story progresses, other, equally rudimentary dots appear on screen and interact with Koen as the party gets into full swing.  It's a clever, amusing stretch of the film, and while Koen's consumption at the party is no funnier to us than it is to him, the feat pulled off by Bakker is impressive: before the end of Koen's story, a machine-voiced spot on the screen has become a character we've bought into.

The second section is not as successful, but does intrigue as the apparently traumatised Stefaan takes a camera and tours some of his childhood haunts.  Quite what's happened to him is hard to discern, but it's a melancholy segment in which the slightly threatening Stefaan often seems close to harming those who now populate the places from his past.  We're left to piece it all together from brief glimpses of the photos he takes, but it's all just a bit too opaque to be properly satisfying.

The middle story features a time machine, as Kjell goes back to rectify the childhood trauma that he feels has affected the rest of his life.  This sounds like a relatively straightforward tale, and it is until it's hijacked by a bizarre, extended medieval interlude.  As the section plods on, it runs out of both steam and focus, and what started out as an interesting idea winds up something of a mess.

The fourth instalment is, by a country mile, the strangest of the five stories.  It's hard to know where to start with this one, but it features a man called Karel and an alien abduction.  There's definitely a Lynchian sensibility at work in this one, with imagery that could easily have come from the recent, third season of Twin Peaks, and it gets things back on track after the two rather disappointing tales that have preceded it.

The final section sees Jef trying just a bit too hard to endear himself to his girlfriend's parents.  After what's immediately preceded it, Jef's story is particularly jarring as it is the most straightforward of any of the tales.  While it's fun to squirm along with Jef as he does his best to please, it doesn't really go anywhere until a killer caption appears at the very end.

Quality Time is certainly different, partially successful, and always ambitious.  While a bit more consistency would have been welcomed, Bakker has done well to link these seemingly disparate tales to a single theme, and pathos is to be found in all of the film's sections.  Of course, with the best served up first, you could always bail after Koen's story, but, as anticlimactic as the following sections are, that really wouldn't be very fair; Bakker's film deserves to be seen to the end, and it has just enough about it to warrant your time .  It screens at the London Film Festival on the 12th and 14th of October.

Darren Arnold

Images: image.net

Cargo (Gilles Coulier, 2017)

Cargo is a solid and highly watchable drama focusing on the fortunes, or more accurately misfortunes, of a Flemish family of fishermen.  Early on in the film, the head of the family falls overboard during a violent storm and is placed on life support.  The eldest son, Jean, who is also a single father, takes on the day-to-day running of the business.  Times are tough, plus the ship is staring down the barrel of a highly expensive engine replacement which is proving impossible to secure funds for.

The taciturn Jean is at the centre of the action, but his two brothers also feature significantly: Francis is pleasant, dependable, yet struggling with his own private issues, while the feckless William - who Jean has no time for - suddenly pops up and wants a say in the future plans for the boat.  With the need for repairs ever more pressing, Jean has some difficult decisions to make, especially as there is a willing buyer lined up for the ship should he wish to sell.  The animosity between Jean and William means an agreement on how to proceed is not going to be easy to come by; matters are further complicated by Robert, a fellow boat owner who encourages Jean to sell up and join his crew - and in any case, Robert does not want to see Jean break the law by fishing with a ship that hasn't been approved as seaworthy.  Amidst all of this, Jean earns a little extra cash by occasionally working as a long distance lorry driver, which brings its own problems such as having to deal with stowaway migrants.

While the film features fine acting from all concerned, the landscape here emerges as a character in its own right; the port and the sea - the two main locations - are captured in a way that really conveys the hard, bleak lives of these people.  The title is something that doesn't really make sense up until very late on, and unfortunately this development threatens to tip the film into a melodrama unworthy of the careful, unsensational material that's preceded it.  The other notable misstep in the film is a nocturnal episode involving Francis, which plays very much like Gaspar Noé-lite and appears to have wandered in from another film.  These minor quibbles aside, Cargo stands as one of the best examples of Dutch-language cinema we've seen in recent years, and is very much recommended.  Quite how this failed to be put forward for the Oscars yet the starry-but-sloppy Racer and the Jailbird did is something of a mystery, as there is little doubt as to which of the two films is superior.  It screens at the London Film Festival on the 13th, 14th and 15th of October.

Darren Arnold

Images: image.net