I saw this movie as part of a tribute to Nico in October 2008 in Berlin. The tribute itself was held in a theater where former friends of Nico and artists that have been inspired by her, sang her songs or gave a performance. It was a fantastic evening that focused mainly on her music. Her son Ari was in the audience. He was not very eager to come on stage. When I saw him, the only question that went through my mind was: "how many lives has this man been through already?" Two days later I saw the movie. It shows everything except innocence and domesticity. What we see is a little boy that is instrumentalized and reduced to an object of a ruthless artist. Not for a single moment is the boy left in peace by Montez and Warhol. Ari has no possibility to withdraw from the small kitchen where the movie is recorded. He does not speak more than a few words (no wonder, since he is being harassed all the time). During the last 10 minutes of the film, Nico comes back from shopping. She looks beautiful, but is far, far away. She talks nonsense and has no real connection to her child. I found it very hard to watch this film, especially because Ari Boulogne himself was with us in the cinema (a little room with 35 chairs) that night. The movie is very personal and it gives the viewer a sense of the dark valleys that this person has walked through. It was bizar to look at it together with him. What did he think about it? He must have asked himself why people are coming to see this movie. Some visitors found the movie amusing or even hilarious and where and spoke about Nico as a heroin. All I could think of was Ari. Although I have read quite a bit about those days (Warhol, The Factory, Velvet Underground, New York in the 60's and 70's) I found the film shocking. It took away the myth of a complete subculture at once. To see how Warhol consumed people for the sake of his art and his visions was horrifying.
2 Reviews
Innocence and Domesticity in a Warhol Film
gar-4215 October 2007
What's a busy single mother and Warhol Superstar to do? Nico needs to go out so, naturally, calls on Puerto Rican drag queen / underground film starlet Mario Montez to baby-sit her young son Ari Boulogne at her cramped apartment in New York's louche Chelsea Hotel.
High jinks ensue: Cherub-faced Ari is adorable but so hyperactive and wild he is virtually feral. Montez offers to read to him, sing to him and dance for him, but Ari is oblivious to her charms and more interested in alternately pretending to be a crocodile and a cowboy and shooting her with his toy gun (towards the end Montez finally snaps, "Can't you find something else to shoot at?"). Off-screen from behind the camera director Andy Warhol himself is frequently audible encouraging urging Ari to misbehave.
All the "action" takes place within the confined space of the tiny kitchen and there is no editing. The film feels like a home movie (its filmed in grainy Super 8 but in grunge-y bleached-out colour instead of black and white), but a home movie with an exceptionally hip bohemian cast.
In lieu of narrative the film is primarily an affectionate character study of the unlikely duo of three year old boy and transvestite. Warhol's more famous Superstar transvestites Candy Darling, Jackie Curtis and Holly Woodlawn emerged later; the rather swarthy Mario Montez can be seen as their precursor. Montez (real name: Rene Rivera from Brooklyn, with a day job at the post office) was the then-reigning drag queen of choice for underground filmmakers in the early 1960s: she'd already worked with Jack Smith in the notorious Flaming Creatures (1963) and appeared in off-Broadway plays; he and Nico would both subsequently feature in Warhol's Chelsea Girls, also set at the Chelsea Hotel. For her baby sitting assignment Montez chooses to wear an incongruous ensemble of long powder blue evening gown, blonde bouffant wig, dangling earrings and heavily-layered clown-like make-up.
Ari (born 1962) was the son Nico claimed was fathered by the European art cinema heartthrob Alain Delon (to this day Delon denies paternity). Certainly if Ari is the offspring of Nico and Delon he inherited their looks: he is an exceptionally beautiful child.
Montez, befitting an exhibitionistic, attention-seeking Warhol Superstar, is acutely conscious of being filmed and is eager to seize the opportunity to perform but when she offers to entertain Ari by singing for him, Ari shakes his head no. She sings "Ten Little Indians" anyway; Ari stonily ignores her. In keeping with the cowboys and Indians theme, when Montez improvises an interpretative Indian squaw dance, Ari hides his face behind a curtain rather than watch her. It's Montez's exasperated attempts to both try to relate to Ari and to maintain her sweet-voiced, lady-like demeanour that make Ari and Mario one of Warhol's funniest and most likable films.
Early in the film the actress and jazz singer Tally Brown (another veteran of both Warhol and Jack Smith films) makes a brief but vivid appearance. She drops by to use Nico's phone: hers has been cut off because hasn't paid the bill. A charismatic figure in a fur hat and suede go-go boots, she speaks to Ari in French with genuine warmth, asking if he knows any songs. When Ari answers No, Tally points out, Your mother is a singer but Ari doesn't reply.
When Nico returns from her outing she sits on the floor and talks casually in her whisper-soft German accent to Montez while Ari tears around, sometimes playing with the off-screen Warhol. The film captures a radiantly beautiful Nico with almost waist-length pale blonde hair, looking fashion model elegant in man's navy blue peacoat over a turtle neck sweater and pinstriped hipster trousers.
Knowledge of Nico's biography foreshadows Ari & Mario with a tragic extra resonance. She has been routinely vilified for her parenting ability, with some justification: Not long after the film Nico would hand Ari over to Alain Delon's parents in France to raise and descend into heroin addiction. More damningly, the general consensus is that later in life when they were reunited she initiated Ari into heroin use.
In Ari & Mario, though, we see only relaxed, unaffected affection between Nico and her young son. Pouring him orange juice, Nico teases, "Ari doesn't love me anymore." At one point Ari approaches and spontaneously plants a kiss on the side of Nico's face then goes back to careening around like a Tasmanian devil. The sight of Nico and Ari at this point in their lives when there would seemingly be so much potential and optimism ahead for them, you can't help but feel a wave of sadness for the despair and addiction that awaits them both in the future.
Devoid of his usual cocktail of sadomasochism and amphetamines, Ari & Mario's emphasis on innocence and domesticity is a sweet exception in the Warhol canon.
High jinks ensue: Cherub-faced Ari is adorable but so hyperactive and wild he is virtually feral. Montez offers to read to him, sing to him and dance for him, but Ari is oblivious to her charms and more interested in alternately pretending to be a crocodile and a cowboy and shooting her with his toy gun (towards the end Montez finally snaps, "Can't you find something else to shoot at?"). Off-screen from behind the camera director Andy Warhol himself is frequently audible encouraging urging Ari to misbehave.
All the "action" takes place within the confined space of the tiny kitchen and there is no editing. The film feels like a home movie (its filmed in grainy Super 8 but in grunge-y bleached-out colour instead of black and white), but a home movie with an exceptionally hip bohemian cast.
In lieu of narrative the film is primarily an affectionate character study of the unlikely duo of three year old boy and transvestite. Warhol's more famous Superstar transvestites Candy Darling, Jackie Curtis and Holly Woodlawn emerged later; the rather swarthy Mario Montez can be seen as their precursor. Montez (real name: Rene Rivera from Brooklyn, with a day job at the post office) was the then-reigning drag queen of choice for underground filmmakers in the early 1960s: she'd already worked with Jack Smith in the notorious Flaming Creatures (1963) and appeared in off-Broadway plays; he and Nico would both subsequently feature in Warhol's Chelsea Girls, also set at the Chelsea Hotel. For her baby sitting assignment Montez chooses to wear an incongruous ensemble of long powder blue evening gown, blonde bouffant wig, dangling earrings and heavily-layered clown-like make-up.
Ari (born 1962) was the son Nico claimed was fathered by the European art cinema heartthrob Alain Delon (to this day Delon denies paternity). Certainly if Ari is the offspring of Nico and Delon he inherited their looks: he is an exceptionally beautiful child.
Montez, befitting an exhibitionistic, attention-seeking Warhol Superstar, is acutely conscious of being filmed and is eager to seize the opportunity to perform but when she offers to entertain Ari by singing for him, Ari shakes his head no. She sings "Ten Little Indians" anyway; Ari stonily ignores her. In keeping with the cowboys and Indians theme, when Montez improvises an interpretative Indian squaw dance, Ari hides his face behind a curtain rather than watch her. It's Montez's exasperated attempts to both try to relate to Ari and to maintain her sweet-voiced, lady-like demeanour that make Ari and Mario one of Warhol's funniest and most likable films.
Early in the film the actress and jazz singer Tally Brown (another veteran of both Warhol and Jack Smith films) makes a brief but vivid appearance. She drops by to use Nico's phone: hers has been cut off because hasn't paid the bill. A charismatic figure in a fur hat and suede go-go boots, she speaks to Ari in French with genuine warmth, asking if he knows any songs. When Ari answers No, Tally points out, Your mother is a singer but Ari doesn't reply.
When Nico returns from her outing she sits on the floor and talks casually in her whisper-soft German accent to Montez while Ari tears around, sometimes playing with the off-screen Warhol. The film captures a radiantly beautiful Nico with almost waist-length pale blonde hair, looking fashion model elegant in man's navy blue peacoat over a turtle neck sweater and pinstriped hipster trousers.
Knowledge of Nico's biography foreshadows Ari & Mario with a tragic extra resonance. She has been routinely vilified for her parenting ability, with some justification: Not long after the film Nico would hand Ari over to Alain Delon's parents in France to raise and descend into heroin addiction. More damningly, the general consensus is that later in life when they were reunited she initiated Ari into heroin use.
In Ari & Mario, though, we see only relaxed, unaffected affection between Nico and her young son. Pouring him orange juice, Nico teases, "Ari doesn't love me anymore." At one point Ari approaches and spontaneously plants a kiss on the side of Nico's face then goes back to careening around like a Tasmanian devil. The sight of Nico and Ari at this point in their lives when there would seemingly be so much potential and optimism ahead for them, you can't help but feel a wave of sadness for the despair and addiction that awaits them both in the future.
Devoid of his usual cocktail of sadomasochism and amphetamines, Ari & Mario's emphasis on innocence and domesticity is a sweet exception in the Warhol canon.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
