Review of Schultze Gets the Blues

"Schutlze gets the blues" has a promising premise but at least Americans not well versed in German culture and language, you will have to fill in a lot of gaps. You will have to make a lot of assumptions as to what is happening in the story, for the director much less the dialog will not give you many clues. In some ways I really liked the film, but the pacing was trying (and I am not an action movie person). Several scenes would have an off-screen person or activity that was central to the moment, and there would be this slow pan from the current subject to the off-screen one... often making you feel like there is going to some big build up... and nothing comes from it. I know some will say that is exactly what the director wanted to happen, and it matches Thoureau's "quiet lives of desperation" theme, but I found it distracting in the end. In fact, supposedly a big transformation occurs when he hears Zydeco music but it is up to the audience to determine this and with the small exception of a dialog with a doctor and his inability to stay focused on his "previous life" polka music without shifting to "new life" Zydeco music, I had a hard time deciding whether he was bored with life and looking for something different, or somehow consumed with a new passion in his later years of life. Any visible positive character transformation for a new "loud life of hope and excitement", came very little and very late in the movie.

I wish there was little less abstracted stills and slow pacing of camera movements, for a little more directness and some more gap filling cues from the director. I would like to give this more stars but I think that only those who seek highly introspective movies to serve more as Rorscach cards would rate this really high.

I decided to click on the spoiler's warning because I'm not sure what is a dramatic plot development in this movie because of the gaps and "how everyday" the entire movie seems to be.