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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.

Imitation of Christ feels a bit abject and perfunctory, like the beginning of the end of the line for Andy Warhol as filmmaker. Warhol himself would direct only a few more films and increasingly Paul Morrissey would take over behind the camera.

Patrick Tilden stars as an inarticulate young hippie. His "parents" (played by Ondine and Brigid Berlin, who are probably no more than ten years older than Tilden) are worried about him. The family maid (Nico) tries to seduce him. His abrasive girlfriend (Andrea Feldman) argues with him.

The perverse, elfin Taylor Mead shows up with no explanation; he and Tilden wander together through San Francisco. (In some synopses of the film Mead's character is described as a hobo or homeless man). So does Tom Baker from the earlier Warhol film I, A Man for a brief scene charged with strange homo-eroticism. Baker and Tilden sit on the floor and Tilden describes a motorcycle crash he recently had, and shows him the scar on his scalp where the hair won't grow.

The main drawback is the deeply un-charismatic leading man Tilden, a former child actor who was apparently romantically involved with Edie Sedgwick. His character in Imitation is usually described as "a strange but beautiful boy." The viewer's response to his physical appeal is inevitably entirely subjective but the drug-addled Tilden -- who looks like a gaunt-featured scarecrow-- doesn't compare favourably with other Warhol heartthrobs like Paul America, Joe Dallesandro or Gerard Malanga. Presumably meant to be enigmatic, on screen he is more of a blank. The very long opening shot is nothing but Tilden's pensive face resting on his folded arms, looking around while we hear Bob Dylan's "A Hard Rain" being played at the wrong speed on a record player somewhere in the room. The heart sinks. Certainly Tilden would not go on to become a Warhol Superstar, which says it all.

Visually, Imitation is characterised by a tactile grunge-y feel: the "action" is filmed in cluttered, derelict rooms. In one brief sequence showing Tilden having a bath, the bathtub is visibly filthy. When we see Andrea Feldman barefoot in bed, the soles of her feet are black with dirt.

There are some sensational, shock value bits of drug use and nudity intended to freak out the squares and give proceedings a jolt: Lying in bed, Ondine shoots up his "wife" Berlin in the ass with a syringe full of speed; Taylor Mead yanks out his penis on a San Francisco street (the most un-erotic spectacle imaginable).

To speculate on the potential drawbacks of Imitation of Christ: The change in the drug subculture from speed earlier in the 1960s to acid in the later 60s was ruinous for Warhol films. Only have to contrast the performing styles of older Warhol Superstars, known speed freaks Brigid Berlin and Ondine (witty, bitchy, mercurial, loquacious, funny) to LSD casualty Tilden's virtually incomprehensible, often worryingly, schizophrenic rambling. Warhol's editing (often impatiently cutting of Tilden mid-sentence) seems to even acknowledge this.

Also: most of Warhol's films were shot in the gritty, urban bohemian realm of New York, within locations like the Factory or The Chelsea Hotel; Imitation was filmed in the sun kissed flower power-era San Francisco. Uptight East Coast versus laidback West Coast. Perhaps it was just the wrong atmosphere to create inspiration.

Similarly, you get the impression that Andrea Feldman is so impatient with Tilden in her scene with him because she is on amphetamines and Tilden on LSD. Both of them are so genuinely disturbed it is uncomfortable viewing, like watching two unsupervised mental hospital patients interacting. Feldman -- who would commit suicide in 1972 aged 24 -- seethes with an anger that is entirely unscripted and has nothing to do with acting. She looks starkly unglamourous here (hair divided into two little girl pigtails, no make-up and blotchy complexion), and would be much better served by Paul Morrissey in the later films Flesh and especially Heat, where she is a very funny actress with a unique, flat-voiced, hostile comedic persona. The way Feldman repeatedly snarls at Tilden, "Come here, bitch!" is probably the funniest moment in Imitation of Christ.

The veteran Superstars rescue the film. Self-mocking and perhaps a bit stoned, Nico is a better comedienne than you might expect given the gloomy artistic image she would later cultivate. Here she is alluring and funny as the predatory, horny German maid who spoon feeds Tilden Corn Flakes and fusses over his hair. When Tilden tells her a long story about fending off a male admirer in prison, she deadpans, "That's a nice story." Later she reads aloud from a medieval religious text Imitation of Christ (from which the film swipes its title) through long false eyelashes while reclining on a couch. She even strips off her blouse while talking to Tilden, trying to get a reaction, and reveals her sleek, sinewy fashion model torso (her very long hair hides any glimpse of her breasts and she keeps her back to the camera anyway). Finally she teasingly asks him, "What would you do if I asked you to take off your shirt and your trousers and your boots?" With their boiling intelligence and rapid-fire mood changes Ondine and Berlin are also magnetic presences as the parents. They keep slipping out of character and admitting they are both sexually attracted to Tilden (ostensibly their "son"). After a typically meandering conversation with Tilden, Berlin is shown flopped out in bed saying how exasperated she is by her "son" and concludes, "I don't even know what a "hippie" is. I just know I hate them!" By the end of Imitation of Christ, you're inclined to agree.

The Closet (1966) was Nico's first film with Pop Art visionary Andy Warhol and represents her cinematic unveiling as a Warhol Superstar. It would be a fruitful relationship: As the Factory's inscrutable Garbo / Dietrich equivalent she would star in several more Warhol films (most famously Chelsea Girls) while also featuring as chanteuse for Warhol's "house band" The Velvet Underground.

The "plot" is absurdist and minimal: a couple living in a closet kill the time (they make small talk, split a sandwich, share a cigarette, kvetch about their cramped surroundings) and contemplate leaving but never do.

For the first few moments the camera is focused on the exterior of the shut closet door in grainy black and white as we hear only their voices (audible but muffled; in fact the sound remains muffled for the rest of the film, poor sound quality a stylistic trademark of Warhol's films at the time). Creeping horror that the entire 66-minute film will stay like this is averted when the door belatedly does open and we are finally permitted to see Nico and leading man Randy Bourscheidt (a preppy, cute art student-type) seated inside the closet surrounded by hangers, ties, clothes, etc. While the couple talk or sit in silence, Warhol's camera either sits totally stationary or prowls restlessly and randomly.

The film is unscripted: instead we get an improvised, wandering conversation between the duo who have obviously been instructed to ad-lib for the 66 minute duration. Most Warhol Superstars were amphetamine-fuelled, garrulous exhibitionists; Nico and Bourscheidt are atypically more reticent. Both seem shy and hesitant and their conversation is often stilted but characterised by a genuine sweetness on both parts. Some viewers have deciphered the hint of a physical attraction between them which is complicated by the pretty, long-lashed and collegiate-looking Bourscheidt's apparent homosexuality (I could be wrong about this. The expression "coming out of the closet" was probably already in use in the 1960s and could be a relevant coded meaning to the film's title).

Certainly Bourscheidt seems dazzled by Nico, which is understandable: The Closet presents her at the height of her beauty. It also reveals the complexity of her persona. The performers in Warhol films are essentially playing themselves, so The Closet is a snapshot of Nico the woman at this particular point in her life rather than an actress performing a role. She looks like a statuesque Nordic Amazon but is wispily-spoken, reserved and uncertain rather than intimidating or forbidding -- her sweetness dispels the cliché of Nico as ice maiden. And her voice - routinely described as guttural or "Germanic" - is infinitely softer than you expect.

As an avant-garde filmmaker Warhol withholds most of the conventional pleasures audiences expect from films (narrative, character development, editing, technical proficiency , etc) but with his Superstars in lead roles he does provide one of the enduring attractions of film-watching: scrutinising beautiful people. So while "nothing happens" in The Closet, we do get to appreciate the physical attractiveness and hip wardrobes of both Nico and Bourscheidt at great length. Nico wears what was then her signature look: an androgynous white pants suit, turtle neck and boots combo that would be the pride of any Mod boy, feminised by a curtain of long blonde hair.

Nico would have been in her late 20s by the time of The Closet, and Bourscheidt (at a guess) between 19 and 22. She speaks to him in tones that are somewhere between maternal concern and big sister-ly teasing. Both seem vaguely embarrassed and self-conscious on screen, but unlike Bourscheidt Nico has the poised armour of sophistication: by 1965 she had already modelled since her teens, acted in films like La Dolce Vita and Strip-Tease in Europe, was the mother of a young son, and had started her singing career.

She also has the skills of a fashion model: she is clearly un-phased by the camera's roaming gaze and is skilled at graceful self-presentation. She has a neat trick of looking down moodily so that her long blonde bangs obscure most of her face and then suddenly looking up and tilting her head, dramatically revealing sculpted cheekbones, Bardot lips and sweeping false eyelashes.

"Are you afraid of me?" Nico suddenly asks Bourscheidt towards the end of their awkward filmic encounter. He looks startled and doesn't know how to reply. "I'm not trying to embarrass you!" She assures.

At the the film's conclusion Bourscheidt teasingly asks Nico if she's forgotten his name. She has, and tries to cover by asking him, "Is it Romeo?" He says no and she says, "Why not?" He asks if she wants him to be Romeo and should he get down on one knee. She replies, "Oh, no. You be Juliet and I'll be Romeo."

Les Bleu des Origins is an uncompromising example of old school avant-garde cinema at its most cryptic, enigmatic and inscrutable. Made by Philippe Garrel in 1979 using a hand-cranked silent camera, Les Bleu represents absolute year zero in film-making, a return to the starkest basics of film's origins in early silent cinema, replacing any trace of narrative or even dialogue with an emphasis almost exclusively on close-ups of women's faces. The film is black and white, and absolutely silent for its full 50-minute duration.

The total silence feels oppressive: silent cinema, after all, was accompanied by music. The silence, though, serves to ensure the focus on the actresses' faces is absolute, with no distraction.

The faces in question belong to the former Velvet Underground German chanteuse, Warhol Superstar and cult figure Nico, and bohemian French starlet Zouzou. By 1979 Nico had been Garrel's lover, muse and collaborator for a decade. Les Bleu des Origins was the seventh and last film they made together, and marked the end of their off screen relationship as well.

The film's tone is intimate but mysterious and ultimately despairing. It is essentially a portrait of two women, Nico and Zouzou, who are offered up for endless existential contemplation. There is no hint of even the most basic narrative but it is human nature to try to construct one, to try to thread together scenes, which are alternately jagged and brief, and sometimes-long Warholian takes that frankly court boredom.

Garrel offers hints of symbolism that are probably highly significant but remain opaque: Nico examining a jewel in her hand; many shots of both women reading manuscripts or poetry by candlelight; a glimpse of Nico's passport; Nico pointing at the sky; Zouzou writing; Nico folding a letter and putting it in an envelope; Zouzou wielding a knife; Nico as an angel of death with waist length hair in a billowing black cape, filmed in high winter on the roof of the Paris Opera House amidst the gargoyles. Most strikingly, Nico in some kind of dungeon or prison slowly climbing a stone staircase, pausing in on each step, in jerky zombie-like movements straight out of a lost German Expressionist masterpiece.

Nico and Zouzou are mostly filmed alone but sometimes together. What links them? Both women were frequent collaborators with Garrel and had appeared in his films several times before. Nico was romantically linked with Garrel: uncertain whether Zouzou was. Like Anita Pallenberg, both women had been involved with the doomed Rolling Stone Brian Jones. In the 1960s both Nico and Zouzou had been glamorous art-y girls of the moment, fashion models turned singers and actresses. By 1979 both women had hit hard times. Nico, Zouzou and Garrel are all known for their heroin addiction. (Later in her life a Zouzou did jail time and was reduced to selling the Parisian equivalent of The Big Issue outside Paris metro stations).

Again and again Garrel films them in scenes that emphasise their alienation, anguish, distress, isolation, solitude. Both Nico and Zouzou were great beauties, and there is genuine pleasure in lengthily scrutinising them in long silent takes; from shot to shot, though, depending on how the light hits their faces, both can look suddenly, startlingly ravaged, older than their years. Maybe the film is about the hell of heroin addiction?

There is actually a third woman in the film who appears so briefly she is almost subliminal: Jean Seberg. In some shots a barely glimpsed heavy-set but still beautiful older woman appears, standing behind Nico while Nico plays the piano like the phantom of the opera. Later, and shockingly, Seberg inexplicably slaps Nico hard across the face. Seberg committed suicide in 1979, the year this film was released. This surely represents her last-ever film appearance.

Zouzou gets equal screen time and is certainly charismatic, but it must be said the film belongs to Nico. In her haunting close-ups she suggests a post-punk Greta Garbo or Marlene Dietrich. Even in the 1930s some of Garbo and Dietrich's most mesmerising on screen moments were silent close-ups of their faces (i.e. the concluding scenes of Queen Christina and Morocco). Their allure was not dependent on dialogue or voices – they cast a spell with just their faces. In Les Bleu des Origins Nico does the same.

As the film continues, the mood of distress and impending tragedy grows more overt. Towards the end Nico is shown crying genuine inconsolable tears, her breath visible in frosty night air, wrapped in a headscarf, seemingly not acting. Her depression is tangible. For someone lazily described as an ice queen who sang in a bored monotone, Nico here convincingly projects raw emotion: her presence aches with a heavy sadness.

Sometimes hypnotic, sometimes catatonic, Les Bleu des Origins is as bleakly beautiful as Nico's best music and was obviously a personal and artistic statement. If the film does represent the end of their relationship, it is certainly a last cinematic love letter from Garrel to Nico.