Nico Icon (Susanne Ofteringer)

Rating: ** (out of ****)

You should probably disregard my poor rating if you're among those who find Nico an intriguing personality. My lack of interest can be summed up in the words of one of the documentary's interviewees (I'm paraphrasing): "There was nothing to talk to Nico about, because Nico didn't have any opinions about anything." This, essentially, is a portrait of a vacuum, and however ably it may have been assembled, it still fails to provide us with much insight into the life of a woman whose fame was largely accidental and whose talent was (in my opinion) rather dubious. The valuable archival footage Ofteringer incorporates only makes matters worse, since the glimpes we get of the Factory and the Velvet Underground are far more interesting than the film's subject proper. Following last year's astonishing portrayal of Robert Crumb -- an icon with an agile mind and an idiosyncratic point of view -- it's a particular disappointment.