‘The Loneliest Man in Town’ Review: An Aging Austrian Musician Plays Himself Playing the Blues in a Quietly Moving Portrait

A work of gently enveloping docufiction, “The Loneliest Man in Town” sees long-time DIY creative pair Tizza Covi and Rainer Frimmel following and dramatizing the twilight years of their friend, the Austrian blues artist Al Cook. The last holdout in his worn-down apartment building — where he was born Alois Koch in 1945 — the threat of losing his home brings into sharp focus the life he’s lived, and the objects and mementos that hold his memories, as he contemplates finally visiting the United States, where the music he holds dear first took shape.

With a soundtrack of rich recordings by blues greats like Lonnie Johnson and Bertha “Chippie” Hill (as well Cook’s own original tunes), the film begins with a sense of lived-in routine, as it captures Cook hobbling up his old spiral staircase to set up his modest Christmas tree. The “most wonderful time of the year” for many,…