|
|
| Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup | | Rating: 4
| What's the opposite of "hot"? If you said "cool," then sorry: That's a synonym. If you said "cold," you're on the money. Now, what's the opposite of "Pierce Brosnan"? Did you say "Horst Krause"? Correct the first time. You obviously know that the German character actor Horst Krause looks and acts a lot more like Fat Albert than like James Bond, which is probably why he's likely to garner considerable audience sympathy for his role in "Schultze Gets the Blues." This small film about a guy who is small (except in girth) presents a penetrating, humorous and sentimental look at a working-class everyman in a small town in Eastern Germany. Schultze and two of his miner buddies, Jurgen (Harald Warmbrunn) and Manfred (Karl Fred Muller), have been retired from their jobs hauling coal. They're now pensioners. What will they do? This is a theme that has resonance in the U.S. as well, particularly now that we're beset with media reports ad nauseum about what will happen in our own country when the baby boomers begin to retire. The theme of "Schultze Gets the Blues" appears as well in the slicker, bigger-budget "About Schmidt," which deals with a 65-year-old insurance exec who suddenly finds he has time on his hands and overstays his welcome with a few members of his immediate family after his wife dies of a heart attack.
Like Schmidt in his later days, Schultze has no wife. His mother is in a nursing home suffering from dementia, and his two coal- miner buddies, though married, are as stuck as Schultze, having lived their proletarian lives as virtual machines underground. They now wile away their hours playing chess, complaining, and eventually feeling envy that Schultze has been chosen to represent his music club, travel expense paid, at some Texas Oktoberfest doings.
"Schultze Gets the Blues" is inhabited by wall-to-wall old people who similarly have time on their hands. Many of them spend their weeks dancing the two step in the Louisiana Bayou country.Schultze, having fallen in love with cajun music after hearing it on his radio, is determined to absorb the southern culture personally. During his travels, he dances the two-step with an American senior and, best of all, is invited to share an authentic bayou crab and shrimp dinner with a woman and her daughter who live just off the waters and who discover the sympathetic Schultze as he drives a rickety motorboat from Texas.
Writer-director Michael Schorr is in no hurry to unfold his 114- minute tale of the liberation of a fellow who devoted his adult life to mining, taking the elevator down and up regularly and playing the same old polka tunes on his accordion just as his father did before him. This allows us to get under the skin of an ordinary fellow doing what is for them something extraordinary–traveling alone to the United States with a knowledge of English that appears to start and stop with the words "thank you," virtually overwhelmed with the kindness of some folks he meets along the way. Schorr's portrait of parts of the American South will never be confused with a slick tourist video, which is all for the good. What Schultze does in his declining years is not the kind of liberation that would impress Che Guevara, perhaps, but for one man who has had little to show for his lifetime of hard work, his immersion in Louisiana zydeco music and his embrace by the Americans he meets is, for him, as good as it gets. His victory is nicely celebrated here.
By : Harvey S. Karten
|
| | Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup | | Rating: 2
| SCHULTZE GETS THE BLUES, like THE STRAIGHT STORY sans story, is sweet but very, very, very slow. This slice-of-retired-life tale from Germany, which has little dialog, relies on Schultze's (Horst Krause) stoic charm to capture our hearts. Running a languid two hours, the movie tests the viewer's patience. Watching it is like staring for hours on end at a picture of a beloved uncle, who may be a fine fellow, but looking at him for long periods of time is more sleep-inducing than interesting. Still, if you are the sort of art house patron who has never found a film too subtle or slow, SCHULTZE GETS THE BLUES might just be your cup of tea. I found the experience rather like viewing GERRY, in which Matt Damon wandered through the desert for two long hours.
There are some nice moments in this movie about Schultze and his fellow pensioners, Jürgen (Harald Warmbrunn) and Manfred (Karl Fred Müller). The best of these small moments occurs when Schultze stares wistfully and silently through the bars of the gate to the mine where he used to work. Another memorable time occurs as the three guys play with their retirement gifts, three large, fake rocks with electric lights inside.
Easily the most annoying part of the production is the cinematography, which will induce motion sickness in many viewers. Especially in the first act, observing the movie is like trying to see a film while riding in a ship at sea. The camera bobs and weaves with the regularity of ocean waves.
"This is the traffic news," the radio announcer declares in one of the few times that Schultze turns on the radio. "There is no news." Nor much of a movie either.
SCHULTZE GETS THE BLUES runs 1:54. The film is in German with English subtitles. It is rated PG for "mild language" and would be acceptable for all ages.
By : Steve Rhodes (http://www.internetreviews.com/)
|
|
[an error occurred while processing this directive]
|
