Now and then I’m in a conversation and I’ll think of a movie I’d like to see again. The most recent blip came when I saw my stepbrother playing his accordion at a show the other night, and it reminded me that I had the same blip only a few weeks ago when talking about German-American cultural differences.
The blip in question is Schultze Gets the Blues, a movie I recommended, but just barely. I missed it at the Denver International Film Festival because it was sold out, but it came back for a theatrical run of about a week. It never played in Boulder.
Cajun life gives Schultze a reason to live
I have often thought of this movie in the intervening year. Maybe it’s not a cinematic masterpiece, and the plot is definitely a little slow and aimless. But the charm of the film has remained alive in my brain.
What I remember is not so much a scene, a shot or a sound, but an idea. The idea is that a man in retirement, a man who has completed a career, can find another purpose in life with the same sense of nervous excitement as a young man starting out for the first time. (In Schultze’s case, it is Cajun culture. He’s played accordion in his traditional German polka band all his life, but hearing a Louisiana zydeco band on the radio opens his eyes to a whole new way of life.)
The blip got me thinking: are there any other movies that have stayed with me for the past year? Yes, there’s one: Oldboy. Oldboy hasn’t haunted me the way Schultze has. It didn’t touch me as personally. But whenever someone asks me for a recommendation, my instinctual reaction is to reach for it. (Then I have to check myself to see if the person asking is the kind of person who can appreciate a violent, disturbing, operatic Korean tragedy.)
So if you’re looking for a recommendation, and you have exhausted everything on our Pic of the Week page, try Oldboy or Schultze Gets the Blues.