Customer Reviews

Schultze Gets the Blues

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2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

This story of a retired German miner who becomes inspired to play zydeco music (instead of the traditional polka) on his accordion unfolds as delicately as a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis. If you're the type of viewer who becomes impatient with subtle, real-time narrative, you might find it tedious. But this film is beautifully done, and even the very slow scenes are enhanced by droll sight gags and persuasive glimpses of emotion. Schultze's dreary northern German town, with its cast of mostly benign denizens, becomes utterly endearing, as are the characters Schultze encounters on his odyssey in search of zydeco. The film's great success is that we come to totally identify with the seeming "lumpenproletariat" of a protagonist as his gentle and poetic soul is revealed. While it is brilliantly grounded in minute details, the film works beautifully as an exploration of the individual's quest for self-realization and artistic expression. And indeed, though it keeps its focus modest and does not overtly address the "big questions," the film offers a more sophisticated meditation on spirituality than many others that try a lot harder.

Michael Schorr's "Schultze Gets the Blues" is a quiet, droll and unexpectedly poignant film that--like its protagonist--takes its own sweet time getting to its destination, but both the journey and the destination are hard to forget. Schultze (Horst Krause) is a bored, phlegmatic retiree and polka accordionist in an ugly, dull German mining town. One day, however, he hears a snatch of zydeco music over the radio, and from then on zydeco and the land of its birth--the Louisiana bayou country--become his twin obsessions. An invitation to a polka festival in Texas gives him the excuse he dreams of, and soon he's playing hooky from the festival, puttering into the bayous in a rented shrimp boat. "Schultze Gets the Blues" is reminiscent of "Stroszek," Werner Herzog's story of Germans lost in the vast strangeness of America, only much more benign. It is odd and asymmetrical (except for the matching shots at the beginning and end), never taking us precisely where we expect to go--kind of like life. Schorr makes Schultze a courtly, portly, lovable Everyman, and what begins as comedy ends as a moving tribute to the philosophy of Carpe Diem. "Schultze Gets the Blues," with its Teutonically deliberate pacing and schnapps-dry wit, is not for every taste. But those who are willing to follow Schultze and Schorr wherever they lead will be rewarded in the end.

This movie is never boring, superficial or pretentious. If you want boring, supeficial and pretentious just go see any of the Matrix sequels.

This film has also been described as a character study, but I think it is very much more than that. It the story of the quest, common to most people, to find something authentic within the all to often pointless conditions of modern life. The key images are the huge mountain of coal slag behind Shultze's garden and house and the repeated image of the silent, relentless windmill. The mountain of slag is the coal waste which Shultze has spend most of his existence mining and which will eventually cause his death from lung disease; the windmill represents the ceaseless passage of time, which is indifferent to how well or how poorly we spend our days between the beginning and the end which it provides for us. Together they point to the absurdity of his (and our) existence. The character Laurent shows the true way to live within this rather ruthless reality. She is a contrast to his catatonic mother, her roommate in the nursing home.

For whatever reason Cajun music quite suddenly touches something within Shultze and sparks his quest for something better; the rest of the film is about his rather uncertain journey to realize this odd hint of something authentic. What he finds along the way are good relationships, and many other people who are seeking, each in their own way, the same thing (e.g. the flamenco-dancing barmaid, the motorcross passions of his retired friend, the ill-tempered poet/switchman). Although Shultze is misunderstood sometimes, on the whole people are more helpful to him than hurtful. Eventually he finds a brief taste of the authentic life he is seeking, albeit just in time.

We see so few movies that actually try to quietly remind us of something important that we should try to appreciate them when they do come along. This is a great film, which is very cinematic, well directed and very consistent. The acting is so good it is hard to understand it as acting at all. It is sad that some who view this film will not understand it or how good it really is because their expectations of film are so conditioned by the hollywood blockbuster machine. Even more saddly, the very people who miss the point of movies like this one are those who most need to understand them. It finally comes down to a question of whether you think film should just distract us from our own absurdity, or actually help us find our way out of it.

I'm swiss, I do know the german mentality and culture very well, so this flick wasn't as alien to me as it must have been to many other people, and I'm also talking about the slow pacing and style of close intimate privacy that is very difficult and seldom to find this honest and real in US movies.

This flick has a lot to offer if you're the kind of watcher that is paying attention to the details. On the surface we watch an old man getting retired and fearing that the gap of loneliness in front of him will be his dead end road. The man is single and alone, but loneliness is also present when he's sitting in the middle of a crowd of people. When one evening, while tuning throught the radio channels, he gets to hear some few tones of a much faster accordeon music style, things begin to change in a surprisingly subtle way.

Something that seems very important to me is that you definetly do not have to like Polka music or US blues to watch this movie. In fact, it's pretty unimportant on that aspect but off course it surely helps if you're a fan. Anyway, this movie shows that there is music and rhytm in everyone, every single person has it and kinda applies to it, or does the rhythm apply to the person...? However, the german villians in the movie seem to function with 30 BPMs (beats per minute, so slow that close to standing still) as everything seems to have more weight, everything requires more time and energy than elsewhere, even ordering three beers in a boring pub is being executed with a minimum waste of energy, there's one hell of a lazy heart beat in everybody there and only some can overcome their mental walls to show signs of goodwill and true charity.

Now early on we come to learn that Schultze isn't an all too social guy: he only talks if absolutly necessary and by doing so he only names to most important facts, he almost bisects even the shortest phrase to an even shorter phrase, and he never smiles. This person is not much of a useful addition to the people there. If anyone could change anything, it surely wouldn't be Schultze to do so. That is until his own life rhythm is subtly changing due to the new musical influence. While Schultze keeps doing "his own thing" (that is playing solo accordeon, only faster this time) the people still tend to shake their heads as this "new stuff" is absolutly alien to them that cannot be accepted this easily. They show signs of excitment but need assurance afterwards, that he will "turn back to the old gold polka again, okay Schultze?" But then, there seems to be more than meets the eye (ear) as all of a sudden two fellows get invited to a tasty dinner - for the first time in 30 years.

Pay attention to the details and you will realize that there are new things going on in this man's life. He seems to have answered to an inner natural urge of enlarging his field of interests and perceptions. The accordeon club got invited to a german meeting over in the states. The members decide to send Schultze over there as a representative. What Schultze experiences over there is just enough to let him forget about that gap in front of him. He doensn't turn into a party goer, to be sure, but there's life coming back, excitment about spontaneously being invited to dinner by a black mother.

In the end, back in germany, they burry this man who had in the end found new sources of freedom to untie yourself from any compulsions of accepted loneliness and unsatisfying deadlocks.

During the final scene I felt sad about the ending. An old man had somehow found out he's got more mental wings in his mind than he would ever have imagined before, but why couldn't he have found these new sources earlier in his life? I thought the ending was too melancholic, but then, right before I started whining I payed more attention to the other members of his funeral: they were playing Schultze's faster accordeon style, additionally, a black umbrella was sometimes "dancing" between the others, a lady was moving her hips, an old man at the end of the queue was doing a pirouette etc. I'm sure they couldn't name the reasons about the subtle change in everyone's life rhythm, but exactly that has happened.

Schultze was gone, but his discovery had planted a seed. Music is life and this flick is just a very very sweet and realistic tale on that subject that you won't soon forget.

One simply can't dismiss as philistines all the reviewers here who wail about the boredom and slowness of this film. The film's pace is slow. The camera lingers on beautifully composed scenes, as if in love with itself for finding such a lovely frame. Such criticism is legitimate and points out a fault. Yet the story of the German accordian player Schultz, freshly put out to pasture with his buddies from their mining jobs, is unique and touching. Schultz himself is a big lump of a man, and a lump of a presence. When he finally has his moment of awakening to zydeco music and starts to play it, almost obsessively, I wanted to hear more. Unfortunately, there isn't a whole lot more, even when Schultz finds himself smack in the middle of zydeco country. I really wanted him to find some band mates and go at it in earnest. That was my hope, but it was in vain. Nonetheless, Schultz's transformation from a polka-playing traditional kind of guy to an adventurous traveler finally enjoying his life to the very end makes for an interesting story, even with the frustrations that are built into it.

Admittedly, this movie is slow going. Like the life it details. If the viewer is accustomed to fast, intrigue and image filled story, I advise s/he watch a different title. This is a very gradual getting acquainted with a character; with still, slow provincial life; with personal travel through meaning, life, aging, and listening to one's heart. I was surprised by the affection that I developed for protagonist Schultze. Though I temporarily balked and wished that the movie could have pandered to my simplistic desire for predictably "entertaining" hooks and solicitous narrative, I was ultimately left with an inspired reminder of life's arbitrary, often unstoppable ways, and a piqued consciousness of the wisdom of living in fuller color. A tender, observant study which I am very happy to have discovered.

For my son of 15, who, curiously enough, was the first person to recommend this film to my wife and I, Schultze represented something of a German middle-aged version of the quirky yet entertaining main character in the eponymous film Napoleon Dynamite. The seemingly buoyant DVD cover together with excellent reviews accompanying the DVD package further piqued our interest. We were not disappointed. And we were also very grateful that our son did not reveal the film's ending.

People who know something about Germany - its society, people and culture - are more likely to appreciate Director Michael Schorr's remarkable gifts as he portrays the setting, mood, pace and undercurrent of the film. I found Schultze Gets the Blues to be a most intriguing, engaging and deeply sensitive film! The plot was brilliantly conceived. Horst Krause is endearing as the recently retired accordion-playing salt miner, Schultze, who, freed from the daily drudgery of the mine, finds himself in search of a new direction. Schultze's accordion becomes the medium through which we witness his metamorphosis. He discovers Zydeco on a local radio station. (Stop here if you don't wish to have the ending revealed.)

It is a joy to witness Schorr's direction and Krause's performance during the transformation of Schultze's musical yearning away from the traditional, predictable and perhaps rigid ump-pa-pas of German polka to the much less readily discernible free-flowing rhythm of Louisiana Zydeco. Schultze has found a musical form that will serve as an allegory for the individual freedom that he is seeking.

In the Louisiana Bayou, Schultze's spirit is fully cast. Schultze ultimately finds both Zydeco and freedom at the precise moment that his life is cut short. Spiritual and musical life in the bayou may be arousing and satisfying, but conditions are poor and the lifesaving medical care that Schultze would have surely received in Germany is nowhere in evidence in the Louisiana Bayou. As with too many people who live in this inherently dangerous planet, Schultze's life, but not his spirit, has been overwhelmed by menacing natural forces surrounding him. We are reminded that freedom and safety are not synonomous.

In the catastrophic wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, we are reminded further of the inherent fragility and socioeconomic imbalances of life in the Gulf Coast region - and of the advisability of each of us grasping as much of life as our bodies and spirits will allow.

Schultze's last vision of this world is one that has been liberated by the redeeming melodies and rhythms of Zydeco. And while Schultze's final moment may have been fleeting, it nonetheless radiates, representing the ultimate triumph of a poignant, yet unique and independent spirit.

Schultz, a salt-miner in Germany faces retirement and begins concentrating on his beloved accordion. The first half of the film revolves around Schultz and his small town with friends and family representing a truly accurate vision of what rural Germany is like. The dialogue is sparse and the shots are long, but it sets the pace for a believable human experience. Schultz discovers zydeco and to his bemused friends finds a new passion. He becomes so good; they send him on a trip to America to compete in a Texan music festival; an event that might test his own confidence. The second half of the film mirrors the laid back life style of the rural South; not too different from Schultz's German life. There are minor characters everywhere. The humor is droll and understated, but that is the magic of this production. The warmth of both German and American citizens Schultz meets is a wonder to watch. The surprise ending is poignant and the fusion of the old South and Eastern Germany has never been better represented (if ever).

If you like sweet-natured movies with unlikely lead characters, particularly when they find themselves breaking out of old habits, you should like the German film Schultze Gets the Blues. It's the first film from director Michael Schorr and he brings it off with style.

Herr Schultze (Horst Krause) is a heavy set man, probably in his late fifties, who with two friends has been eased into retirement at the commercial salt mine he has worked at for years. Calling Schultze portly would do poor justice to his sizable belly. He's not flabby; he's earned those inches through hard work and plenty of beer. He lives alone and has never thought much about fancy ideas like life. Now, he takes afternoon naps, drinks beer with his two friends, washes his garden trolls and continues to play the accordion at polka parties. He's a slow moving, slow talking, deliberate man. Life is just there, nothing is happening in it, and Schultze is slowly being bored to death without realizing it. He just continues to take each day at its own pace.

Then one night he turns the radio dial at home and suddenly hears a fast, strange style of accordion playing he's never heard before. He's come across a broadcast of Louisiana zydeco music. He listens, puzzled. He turns the radio off and starts to go back to bed, then turns and switches the music on again. He listens some more. He tries to figure out the music he's listening to. He turns the radio off again, heads back to bed, but then stops and puts on his accordion. He picks out the tune, then plays it faster and faster, trying to match the zydeco beat. Herr Schultze doesn't know it yet but he has just changed his life.

Before long Schultze is playing his zydeco song before puzzled polka audiences. He finds a recipe for jambalaya and cooks it for his two best friends, who've never had such a spicy dish before. Schultze smiles approvingly as they keep eating and drink more beer. He gets part time jobs to earn money for a trip to bayou country in the States. And he wins a contest which will give him enough money to go to his town's sister city in America, New Braunfels, Texas, to compete in a music festival. Schultze gets there, listens to the others and realizes he's out of his league. Instead of going home to spend more time polishing the garden gnomes and taking naps in the afternoon, he buys a small blue boat with an enclosed cabin and sets out from coastal Texas into Louisiana bayou territory. Schultze can speak probably no more than a dozen words of English. He also is one of the most sincere, innocent and non-threatening people you'll ever meet. Schultze meets people he never thought of meeting yet somehow always wanted to. Old men playing dominos in a friendly bar in Moulton, Texas. A Czech band made up of cheerful Americans on the Texas gulf coast. Middle-aged cajuns dancing to a zydeco beat in a bayou bar. A woman and her daughter on a boat who give him a glass of water and invite him to stay for a creole lunch of crab and shrimp. The postcards and pictures he sends back to his friends bemuse them. Schultze also finds a contentment that we share with him.

The movie takes its time. There is no flashy cutting. The director isn't afraid of setting up his camera and simply letting a scene unfold. The first half of the movie when Schultze is at his home can sometimes seem as slow-moving as Schultze himself, but stay with it. Once you get into the rhythm of the movie, it works. There is little dialogue, especially when Schultze gets to Texas, just the efforts of a well-meaning man to be understood, and of the efforts of well-meaning Texans, Creoles and Cajuns to understand him. The movie has a dead-pan sense of humor about it at times. It can be poignant but it's not sad. And even the ending is not too sentimental. The movie is well photographed, especially the long, gray days in Schultze's home town and the lush, bayou landscapes that make up the last half of the film.

The DVD transfer is just fine. The only significant extra is a commentary, in German with subtitles, by the director. For those who like quirky, small-scale films, Schultze Gets the Blues fits right in with two other fine movies, Bagdad Cafe and The Man Without a Past. All three are worth having.

Michael Schorr's debut film is a bittersweet tale of a retired salt miner who is taken, suddenly, by Zydeco music.

After being forceably retired, Schultze and his two compatriots swill beers at the Stammtisch (regular's table at the pub), play accordion for the club during Carnival and generally live a life of absolute boredom as pensioners. One evening, after the radio ominously describes the rising cancer among miners from breathing in diesel fumes, Schultze hears a program about Louisiana and is totally taken by a Zydeco riff. This small snippet of music sends the lifelong Polka player on a quest that ends in the Bayou country.

I love how the film maker has left OUT parts of the story for the viewer to fill in for themselves. The story is inexpressibly sad, yet triumphant in a way as well. A very promising beginning for this German director, whose second film is now studded with all the current German film stars. Can't wait to see what he does next.