Show For Filmmaker Struck a Teutonic Chord r Philip Kennicott The Washington ashington Post Michael Schorr the director of a low budget but film called critically acclaimed Blues Gets the e eis laughs a at anything Not a big laugh or a nervous gentle laugh just a happy to world the sort of laugh Ask him about the opening setting of the film a region called Saxon Saxon-Anhalt and he chuckles a bit and says it It is is a blank space in Germany a very poor area it is a forgotten And he area laughs a little more to finish the thought Out of this forgotten place emerges one of f the more unlikely film heroes a fat pudding faced middle aged German man named who harks back to stereotypes stereotypes stereo- stereo stereotypes types of the harmless loving beer-loving happily philistine Germans of an earlier more innocent era doesn't wear a monocle doesn't strut around in black leather doesn't plot murder 1 mayhem or world r a Cur most ot his life he sticks close to home plays the accordion drinks with his friends doffs his hat to the ladies and listens lis lis- tens to the radio He is a throwback to the German Everyman of the century such as one might find in the writings of Heinrich Heine Heine- free of angst devoid of malice He is is an old-fashioned old guy says Schorr But there are quite a few of those left They wear their hats they love their food they are very well behaved But he adds Slowly he develops into a real character That development is set on its path by an unlikely spark who has lost his job in the salt mines is forced into early retire retire- ment Hes He's bored and shiftless And then one night alone in his very spartan apartment in what used to be East Germany he hears a little riff of music which music which works its way into his brain and sets him himon himon himon on a journey that will end inthe in the bayous of Louisiana Schorr 38 who weighs about pounds less than his hero played by the marvelous German character actor Horst Krause has crafted a film that cuts against the Hollywood grain And against the grain of the great German filmmakers of the the and who gave German Gennan film a reputation tion for being dark complex and witty only in a bitterly ironic way Schorr's movie his first is film screen big-screen a natured good-natured amble with touches of gentle humor and only a single flash of anything approaching h hos hos- s- s It is an intensely humanist film exploring a succession succession of gentle gentle gentle gen gen- tle decencies exchanged between people of very different back back- grounds That was the whole point Schorr says and it put him into con conflict with some of the people who might have helped fund his 1 million opus When we had discussions potential with backers he says there was was' always the question Where is the confrontation All the usual screenplay things you encounter Where is the villain where is the hero It was obvious that this is not a film like that Schorr managed to secure funding fund fund- funding ing from public and private sources maintained his creative independence independence dence and produced a film that has had success at festivals Europe across Schorr who studied philosophy and musicology before film uses music as the goad to his characters character's transformation is an accordionist a lifelong devotee of the polka until gets into his imagination and leads him away from his small German Gennan village As the scene changes so does th the musical focus Polka with its strong and regular accents gives s way to which is off the beat and somehow appeals to it the slippery one in ca a C way hh that thatto A u vuu Schorr's Schon's film might have gone any number of predictable It could have ended up as a good feel-good crowd pleaser please such as Mark Hermans Herman's 1997 Off which also begins with the premise of music as a redemptive force in a bleak world of unemployed unemployed unemployed miners It could have become a simple valentine valentine to to or the polka polka and and remained rooted in a single place a single ethos But it is fundamentally a film about travel and encounters with different places and people The small miracle of Schorr's direction and Krause's acting is that is about as blank and aimless as a traveler can be yet be yet he slowly gains sympathy and depth He is a caricature unaware of being a caricature a freakish man who wanders into new places and through pure innate amiability leads an apparently charmed life Schorr wrote the script for the Gets the Gets Blues 10 years b ago In be between writing the script and making the film he went to film school He produced a few documentaries and then set about trying to find the funding for the project He is part of a anew anew anew new generation of German filmmakers filmmakers film film- makers who have emerged after the post post doldrums of the German movie business Schorr has a definitely eccentric sensibility I t That eccentricity is most apparent in what isn't present in the film It is isa isa a film about middle-aged middle and older people without the young beautiful ful specimens that haunt the films of of Hollywood and all too much of independent film It is a film entirely devoid of the conventional tension-building tension plot devices and it revels in little details details a a radio that begins speaking directly to the main character that pierce the usual dull expectations of cause and effect reality Near the end Schorr's film becomes a little darker a littlemore little littlemore littlemore more ominous but you can never quite 1 put your our finger on the reason- reason ana men it IL ends with a d joke Even even in his construction of the plot Schorr has been happy to remove things things motivations motivations background background- that might obligate the viewer to a single reading of the film for example finds a boat and takes it Does he steal it Perhaps The question lingers and is eventually dissolved in the realization real real- realization that it doesn't matter is a man who is floating through life with the currents and he needs the boat and that's all that counts Since the whole film wasn't much about explaining things more about discovering things we cut it out says Schorr when asked about how his main character suddenly finds himself piloting a small craft into the consuming expanse of the Mississippi delta There was originally originally originally nally some footage that made sense of this moment But when asked what it showed Schorr gives a little laugh and jokes For legal reasons I ca cant t comment et f t g a r rr r J 1 j L r a 9 9 f r i rr f r C r. r c U e 4 R 3 0 h r Michael Schorr's independent film the propelled Gets the Blues which made 1 million is his first screen big project |