‘Köln 75’ review: Lively re-staging of a 1975 jazz show is a showcase for actor Mala Emde

Dir/scr: Ido Fluk. Germany/Belgium/Poland 2025. 115mins.

Köln 75 just isn’t strictly a jazz film – however then, as Ido Fluk’s movie retains telling us, the improvised music of pianist Keith Jarrett just isn’t actually jazz. That is the story of the 1975 solo live performance on the Köln Opera Home that yielded Jarrett’s legendary best-selling album The Köln Live performance – or relatively, the story behind the live performance. Whereas it highlights an engagingly spiky efficiency by John Magaro as Jarrett, the true focus is on Vera Brandes, the teenage jazz fan who, towards all odds, made the occasion occur.

A vivid automobile for a dynamic, usually very humorous Mala Emde 

Opposite to the exalted aura that always surrounds Jarrett – and which the movie fondly sends up – this larky, typically facetious movie above all celebrates Brandes and the rebellious spirit she represents, right here energetically embodied by Mala Emde. Written and directed by US-based Fluk (By no means Too Late, The Ticket), this Berlinale Particular Gala title could infuriate music purists, however its freewheeling ebullience is more likely to ring a bell with curious non-specialist audiences.

Brandes is first seen, performed by Susanne Wolf, receiving a dour fiftieth birthday toast from her conservative, authoritarian father (Ulrich Tukur), who laments that she by no means got here to something; in truth, Brandes had already distinguished herself as a promoter and file firm boss. Out of the blue, a music critic named Michael Watts – an occasional narrator performed with affable wit by Michael Chernus – interrupts proceedings in considered one of a number of self-referential nudges to the viewer, within the tricksy, understanding method of Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Get together Individuals or Adam McKay’s political satires. 

Now the movie flashes again to Brandes, performed by Emde, as a liberated jazz-loving teenager following her passions within the conservative Seventies Germany. A gathering with veteran saxophonist Ronnie Scott (a properly wry Daniel Betts) kickstarts her profession as a promoter whereas she continues to be at college. Regardless of her dad and mom’ disapproval, Brandes is unstoppable, working guerrilla-style alongside her crew, together with her resentful however in the end supportive brother (Leo Meier) and her radical bestie Isa (Shirin Eisa). 

Then comes a sidestep as Michael Watts – a composite of a number of writers, presumably together with the real-life scribe of that identify – delivers a short novices’ information, explaining why Jarrett’s spectacular improvisations weren’t jazz however “pure music”. The movie follows Watts as he tries to land an interview with the artist, accompanying him on a protracted automotive journey with laconic ECM Data head Manfred Eicher (Alexander Scheer).

Again in Köln, Brandes faces a pile-up of unimaginable circumstances – together with Jarrett’s reluctance to carry out, attributable to a combination of perfectionism, exhaustion and backache. No much less involving for the result being identified, Köln 75 pitches itself throughout as an against-the-odds backstage comedy, not in contrast to Jason Reitman’s latest Saturday Night time. Its energies are very a lot these of a rock film; certainly, the soundtrack options valuable little jazz, as an alternative highlighting 70s German bands like Can and Floh de Cologne. 

The movie is a vivid automobile for a dynamic, usually very humorous Emde who, at 28, is convincing as a wide-eyed, sharp-mouthed teenage drive of nature. Extra contentious, however nonetheless magnetic, is Magaro’s portrayal of Jarrett as a moody, refractory, considerably Dylanesque mystic – not a determine of enjoyable by any means, however one who the movie drapes considerably wryly in an aura of otherworldly enigma. 

Fluk proceeds with out an excessive amount of reverence – treating the massive night time as a terrific you-had-to-be-there gig relatively than as a pious epiphany – whereas nudging us that this account is probably not 100% dependable. Köln 75 is greater than a contact irritating when it overplays its knowingness, however the component almost definitely to click on with audiences is the female-focused story of a high-stakes battle, exhibiting how a cultural ardour can typically overcome all obstacles and rework an individual’s life completely.