Köln 75

On 24 January 1975, the jazz piuanist Keith Jarrett, playing on an empty stomach and a delapidated instrument, gave a performance so remarkable that it became the stuff of legend, with the resulting live album remaining a best seller to this day. The story behind this film is that writer/director Ido Fluk wanted to make a film about that concert but couldn’t get the rights to the music. Maybe it’s true. maybe it isn’t. What matters is that, in making instead a film about the events that led up to it – far less well known and only slightly fictionalised – he has created something much more interesting.

Even in today’s massively skewed and exploitative industry, it’s easy to forget how male-orientated the music industry was back in the Seventies, when the only women around were performers (usually persuaded to be singers even if, as in the case of Karen Carpenter, their real talent lay elsewhere) or hangers-on. With that in mind, one can understand why the parents of Vera Brandes (played here by Mala Emde) were alarmed when, at 16, she announced that she wanted to be a part of it. Vera, however, had no intention of being limited in that way. She wanted to make things happen, and she had the force of personality to deliver, despite havinbg neither training nore experience. This film isn’t about Jarrett, whose story has been told many times elsewhere. It’s hers.

Like Brandes herself, who went on to be a successful producer, Emde is a force to be reckoned with. The film could not have been made any other way. It is her sheer charisma that makes is believable when Vera persuades musicians much older than her – who have no idea of her age – to trust her with all manner of ambitious tasks. In desperate moments we watch her hustle like Marty Supreme, though she is never as unlikeable, clearly caring about people as well as her ambitions. Sometimes this leads to misplaced emotional investment. She has no interest in devoting herself to a man in the way then expected of women. Her true love is music, and to be fair, she never pretends otherwise.

Although it actually covers a span of two years, the film feels more like a single dramatic sequence as events collide into one another, sending Vera tumbling towards the series of disasters which threaten its established conclusion. It has the energy to get away with this even for audiences familiar with the history, thanks in part to Emde’s performance and Fluk’s direction, but also to its eclectic period soundrack and Michalina Lukasik’s splendid costumes. Emde’s colourful outfits speak strongly to Vera’s character and relationship with jazz, whilst Lukasik’s other work is crucial in delineating the overlapping cultural influences with which she is surrounded. The costumes also work with the sets and even some of the outdoor locations to help capture the vibrancy of the moment.

Balanced against this is John Magaro’s best performance to date, taking Jarrett’s well known mannerisms and making them feel natural, thoroughly human. It’s the kind of work that is more powerful for being brief, and it’s delivered with an assuredness that keeps it from being eclipsed by Emde. Jarrett is the final boss for Vera, the last of the people she needs to win over in order to achieve her goal, and he’s utterly different from anyone she’s dealt with before, forcing her to change pace and allow different aspects of her character to come to the surface.

There are, inevitably, viewers disappointed that they don’t get to hear Jarrett’s performance, though it’s difficult to imagine how this could have been satisfactorily summarised anyway. Others will be unhappy with some of the short cuts and exposition used to make the story accessible to a wider audience. Compromise is very difficult to avoid when dealing with subjects like this. Fluk sticks to his own vision, delivering a film whose momentum will draw in and thrill viewers from all sorts of backgrounds. It seems probable that, as a result, a good number of them will go on to listen to Jarrett for the first time.

Reviewed on: 01 May 2026