Everyone has probably asked themselves the question “what if”. Perhaps with a view to winning the lottery, great love or professional success. The director Heike Fink, who comes from Wuppertal, sends the musician and comedian Olaf Schubert on a search for clues with a very special question.
Could it be that Schubert is Mick Jagger’s illegitimate son because Olaf’s “Mutti” had a hot affair with the Rolling Stones frontman at the band’s first Germany concert in Münster in September 1965? Of course not. Olaf Schubert alias Michael Haubold was born almost 26 months after the performance and also in the other part of the republic.
East-West time travel
But that’s not what Heike Fink’s fictional documentary is about. Instead, a piece of East-West history is told in an entertaining way with wishes, longings, hopes and actual events on both sides of the Iron Curtain. East German sensitivities are clearly the focus. In the film, while cleaning up the basement, Schubert finds tapes from “Mutti”, who, as a radio journalist, claims to have interviewed at the German premiere of Stones Jagger.
During his research, Schubert encounters East German legends such as City singer Toni Krahl, Hartmut König, creator of the agit-prop hit “Sag mir, wo du staut” and Rammstein keyboardist Flake, who has a phone number from Jagger and in unkempt English speaks on his mailbox. Flake admits that he doesn’t know what Olaf means in English. Schubert: “They’re still working on the translation.”
Flake regrets not having been a musician as early as the 1960s. At that time, women would have stood in line at the Stones in front of the hotel room – because of sex. In the East, there was a queue when there was ketchup in the store.
It’s scenes like this that make the flick endearing. Heike Fink relies on Schubert’s ability to deliver comedic slapsticks and gags off the cuff. The detective searches at locations such as the GDR broadcasting center in Berlin’s Nalepastrasse, in the Münsterlandhalle, in front of Jagger’s French castle and even in the Stasi records authority to get to the bottom of the matter in terms of files. Schubert’s boss from the “heute show”, Oliver Welke, also has his say. “Where does Olaf Schubert’s almost animal sexiness come from? This film finally has the answer,” Welke advertises on the website for the strip.
Between fiction and reality
According to Fink, it was about leaving the question of fiction and reality in limbo. The fact that some viewers believe the story is true to the end also has something to do with the quality of the actors. With a few exceptions, these are eyewitnesses. So far she has only felt positive reactions to the film, says Fink: “Many did not expect Olaf Schubert and want to know whether Mick Jagger really appears in the film.”
But that’s not the only thing that creates excitement. Fink, born in 1968, did not have to persuade anyone involved. “There was nobody who wasn’t willing to join in the fun. “Although there is a lot of improvisation, there is of course a sequence of scenes and a script. After all, it is important to build up and maintain a tension curve.”
“Dramaturgic turning points, neuralgic words and causal connections were agreed beforehand. Then we tried out the scene. Olaf asked questions that interested him at the respective point in the story and that were relevant to the dramaturgy,” the director describes the procedure. Schubert is not only a great improviser, but also a good actor. He proved that as Olaf Jagger.
When Fink came up with the idea for the film, she didn’t have a main hero in mind. When it came to the question of the cast, they and the producers referred to a Schubert tour poster for his program “Sexy Forever!” and discovered certain similarities between Olaf and Mick: “The spark jumped over immediately.” Since Schubert came from the East, the what-if question had to be broadened. “The story has taken on a different journey and has become an East-West journey through time.”
Fink reports that the film also taught him more about the GDR. “For example, I didn’t know how big the broadcasting center on Nalepastrasse was and what good technical facilities were available there.” The singing movement in the GDR had also been unknown to her until then. “Tell me where you stand” keep them in mind as a catchy tune.
Olaf Jagger, Germany 2023, 100 minutes, from 6 years, by Heike Fink, with Olaf Schubert, Franz-Jürgen Zigelski, Ursula-Rosamaria Gottert, Toni Krahl
Website Film Olaf Jagger
