The Nomi Song (2004) Reviews

• What I've been waiting for

  k_wedge2004-10-18

  This is a remarkable compilation of interviews, live shows, home videos, and more all bringing together the short but phenomenal career of Klaus Nomi. Though it seems blatantly low-budget, it keeps in vein with the atmosphere of the time and the storyline falls into place artfully but logically. I was very impressed by the vast amount of material that was found to put into this documentary; being a Klaus Nomi fan myself I know it's extremely hard to get your hands on this sort of thing... well, here it is! The only thing I could've asked to improve as far as this movie goes was a better remaster of the audio - a lot of it was out of sync, a common problem that is easily fixed. Maybe we can look forward to that on later releases or perhaps the DVD? In any case, I still love it, 9 out of 10 stars.

• The Apparent Genius of Klaus Nomi

  aliasanythingyouwant2005-12-24

  Andrew Horn's The Nomi Song makes no bones about it - performance artist Klaus Nomi was a man of genius. The film is an unapologetic celebration of the mystique of Nomi, the weird brilliance of this late '70s/early '80s New York club phenomenon, who had a minor breakthrough after appearing with David Bowie on Saturday Night Live (he sold well in Europe anyway). If you have no idea who Nomi was then you're not alone; his appeal was purely a cultish one. Those who sing his praises in The Nomi Song - people who were doing lots of drugs in the days they're recounting, it must be pointed out - would have us believe that this was a man of such soaring talent, it would only have been a matter of time before he became famous world-wide. The evidence put forth by Horn - old home videos, some snippets from professionally made programs - would seem to suggest something else, however: a man who, in spite of his obvious talent (he was a trained opera singer, a tenor capable of achieving a haunting falsetto), was always too wrapped up in his own strange, stylized persona to ever really connect with the masses. The Nomi Song is the portrait of a man who reinvented himself, an exhibitionist who discovered an audience by nullifying every hint of his own personality, and presenting himself as a kind of performing robot. The real Klaus Nomi, we're told, was a sweet, gentle soul, a kid from Berlin who came to New York with dreams of being a star and wound up mopping floors; and the few glimpses we get of Nomi off-stage would seem to uphold this. The real Nomi, it appears, was nothing special, outside of the fact that he could sing (it was his misfortune that there wasn't much market for German tenors who could stretch to a falsetto soprano); the fake Klaus, invented by Klaus as a replacement for the one the world didn't much care for, was a man with a painted face who dressed like a gay Ming the Merciless and sang opera-tinged pop songs in New Wave clubs. People who witnessed Nomi's bizarre, Kabuki-like stage-act gush on and on about what an overwhelming experience it was, but what we see of Nomi, though certainly odd and interesting, fails to convey this feeling. Nothing, we're led to believe, could ever capture the true power of Nomi on-stage. What the film offers us is a tantalizing taste of something eyewitnesses swear was practically transcendent; it's like trying to appreciate the greatness of Robert Johnson by listening to some scratchy old records. Maybe Nomi was what the film insists he was - a great talent who, by the sad fact of his untimely demise not to mention some egregious mis-management, failed to achieve the stature he seemed destined for. I would tend to doubt it, but the movie makes its argument compellingly, and by placing Nomi in the context of his times, the fag-end of the Andy Warhol days and the beginning of the AIDS horror (Nomi died of the disease), conveys a poignant sense of a lost era, a fondly-remembered scene (the eyewitnesses are all middle-aged, conservative-seeming people; it's hard to imagine them decked out in pink hair and Star Trek get-ups). It finally doesn't matter if Nomi really was what The Nomi Song wants us to think he was (his music was simple-minded and mannered); it matters more that he existed, and embodies in people's minds a certain time and place (those who die young always come to represent the age they lived in; James Dean IS the '50s). The Nomi Song is as much a portrait of the world around Nomi as it is of Nomi, and that world, its strangeness, its lingering energy, is the thing worth remembering.

• Portrait of A One-of-a-Kind Artist in a One-of-a-Kind Decade

  dtb2005-07-17

  My husband and I were eagerly anticipating THE NOMI SONG, Andrew Horn's by-turns witty and poignant documentary about Klaus Nomi, the German singer/performance artist with the multi-octave range who took New York and then the world by storm for a brief, exciting period in the 1980s. Nomi, with his outer space alien persona, was so avant-garde even the avant-garde set wasn't quite sure what to make of him, but loved him all the same before his tragic death from AIDS (this was back when AIDS was still new and scary and known as "gay cancer"). Our 8-year-old daughter liked Nomi's "high, high voice" and kooky costumes. We adults liked the interviews with Ann Magnuson and other scene-makers from the era, as well as the chance to see such rarities as Nomi's performance with David Bowie on a 1979 SNL episode (which I remember seeing during its live broadcast back in the day). THE NOMI SONG also sports a treasure trove of DVD extras, including full-length musical performances, an Easter Egg feature for part-time pastry chef Nomi's lime tart recipe, and Lou Christie talking enthusiastically about Nomi's cover of his classic "Lightning Strikes Again" (Christie kinda starts talking about himself, too, but it's interesting and endearing). If you like 1980s New Wave music and all things offbeat, THE NOMI SONG is well worth seeking out!

• Wow!

  imdb-57342005-02-10

  I just saw this film. I found it exciting, touching, more than a little inspiring, and was impressed by the filmmaker's ability to craft an intimate personal portrait of the man while also rendering a feeling for the period in which he lived. Good times -- will likely get out to see it again before it leaves town. Agree with the original poster: this one seems destined for cult status. PS: Anyone find it odd that saving bandwidth by writing concisely here is punished by IMDb? I love everything else about this site, but the arbitrary requirement that we each become novelists in the mini-reviews is silly, and ultimately counter-productive: is it really so bad if you can say what you need to say in under 10 lines? I pity those who can't, and if IMDb must ban me rather than update their policy to accommodate those who can communicate well, then at least the few of you who read this before they ditched me know that at least I tried. Some businesses learn and adapt. Others ban reality.

• Very good chronicle of its time.

  actorman_us2005-02-14

  Klaus Nomi was certainly an interesting character. Possessing a unique look and a phenomenal voice, he seemed poised for a measure of stardom during the early 1980s. Alas, Nomi was to be one of the first people of note to be struck down by AIDS. This documentary does a very credible job of not only giving us a glimpse into Klaus Nomi, but also giving us a look into the world of the "New Wave" in New York during the late 1970s and early 1980s. It is replete with footage of Nomi in performance, showing off his truly bizarre look and his unbelievable singing voice (Nomi's performance of "The Cold Song," an arrangement of a piece by Henry Purcell, is one of the most beautifully haunting pieces of music I've ever heard). Andrew Horn does a very good job of interspersing interview footage and performance footage. He does, however, misstep in a couple of areas. The use of 1950s Sci-fi footage, used to augment Nomi's ruse of being from outer space, is overdone. Horn apparently feels the need to hammer this motif into the ground. More unusual is the use of paper mache cut-outs used to represent Nomi's aunt, seen as we hear her many comments throughout the film. It is a device as obscure in its intent as it is distracting and annoying in its effect. Overall, this is a good documentary with a pervasive sadness. We lost an amazing voice before it could be heard by the world. It is a well done portrait of a unique character, a colossal talent, and at heart, a lonely man with a sweet, sweet soul.