Schultze Gets the Blues

A German salt miner (Horst Krause) takes early retirement and then gradually comes to realize he has neglected to plan for a life without work. He spends his days fishing, drinking with his buddies, playing chess and staring off into space with dull, glazed eyes. He finally takes up (or returns to) accordion playing and enters a local music festival in hopes of going on to a zydeco festival in Texas. If you’ve ever wanted to spend an hour and 49 minutes with a boring accordionist who knows only one song—and plays that one badly—here’s your chance. First-time filmmaker Michael Schorr has produced a film of numbing, stupefying dullness, so agonizingly static that shots go on for endless minutes; many even seem arbitrary and pointless, as if Schorr had absent-mindedly left the camera running.