Review by Eric Hillis
Directed by: Ido Fluk
Starring: Mala Emde, John Magaro, Michael Chernus, Alexander Scheer, Susanne Wolff
Biopics of musicians tend to be more interested in the musician than the music. Two of the best movies about music - Bertrand Tavernier's Round Midnight and Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People - are ironically less interested in the people who create music and more in those who promote it. Tavernier's film focusses on a jazz-loving Parisian who becomes determined to restore a faded American saxophonist to his former glory. Winterbottom's tells the story of how one man revitalised the city of Manchester by recognising and promoting its wealth of diverse musical talent.
Köln 75 does something similar. It tells the story behind one of the most famous live performances in jazz history, pianist Keith Jarrett's 1975 Köln Concert, a recording of which would become the biggest selling solo jazz album of all time. But the central figure isn't Jarrett (played by John Magaro); rather it's the young woman whose determination and love of jazz willed the concert into being.
While her friends obsess over the latest Krautrock, 18-year-old "jazz bunny" Vera Brandes (Mala Emde, whose boundless energy allows us to overlook the fact that she doesn't remotely pass for a teenager) lies about her age and hangs out in Cologne's fading jazz clubs. It's hear that she meets the British musician Ronnie Scott (Daniel Betts). Impressed by her moxie, Scott hires Vera to organise a German tour for his band. Vera has never promoted a gig in her life, but using the phone in her disapproving dentist father's office, she manages to put together a tour. And she doesn't stop there, quickly becoming one of Germany's biggest jazz promoters, despite her young age.
When Brandes learns that Jarrett is touring European venues with a unique series of entirely improvised performances, she becomes determined to have the pianist play in her home town. Not just at any venue, but at the city's revered opera house. It's not that simple, of course. Brandes will need to come up with 10,000 DM to hire the venue, and the only free slot is an 11pm start right after an opera performance. Further obstacles will present themselves as the gig nears, not least of which is the absence of a suitable piano.
At its heart, Köln 75 is the sort of "putting on a show" drama that might have once starred Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. Those movies were often about trying to preserve something (usually a youth hall) that held special meaning for the protagonists. Köln 75 is no different. Brandes' quest isn't simply about getting a musician on stage. It is about keeping an artform alive at a time when it was in danger of disappearing into obscurity. In the '70s, jazz was more popular in Germany than most countries (at least in the west; behind the Iron Curtain jazz thrived because of its lack of lyrics that might be considered subversive to communist youth), but even in Germany it was considered old hat by young people and snobbishly sneered at by older classical fans. While the genre would never return to the status it held in the first half of the twentieth century, the success of Jarrett's Köln concert gave it a significant boost and briefly won jazz a new audience.
Writer/director Ido Fluk has clearly taken 24 Hour Party People as the template here, filling his movie with Godardian affectations, fourth wall breaking and cheeky admissions of "this never really happened, but sometime it's best to print the legend." At first these touches come across as a little too try-hard, but they reflect the infectious youthful energy of Brandes. A second central figure emerges in American music journalist Mick Watts (Michael Chernus), who inserts himself in a fictional encounter with Jarrett and acts as a lecturer on jazz history. Seasoned jazz snobs may roll their eyes at his reductive takes, but they reflect the right amount of enthusiasm to possibly win this beautiful musical genre some new fans.
Jarrett denied the production the right to use any of his music, so it inevitably feels anti-climactic when the musician sits down, hits the keys and we're left to listen to Nina Simone instead (cutting to credits just before Jarrett strikes his first note may have been a wiser choice). But just as Sofia Coppola's Priscilla worked without featuring any of Elvis's songs, Köln 75 thrills because it isn't simply about one particular musician. Rather it is an energetic tribute to those who work behind the scenes to erect the pedestals upon which we place our cultural icons.
Köln 75 is in UK/ROI cinemas from June 5th.
