Life is slow for Schultze in his little hamlet town near the River Saale. After spending a career underground in the salt mine, his job becomes extinct along with the jobs of his longtime friends, Jürgen and Manfred. They get a musical sendoff in three-part harmony and a lamp made out of a dingy salt crystal. This delightful deadpan comedy from German writer/director Michael Schorr captures with quiet hilarity the metamorphosis of a middle age man who has spent his entire life within a stone’s throw of his hometown. After the thrill of going to the pub whenever they feel like it wears off, the trio finds spending their days in relaxation less than rewarding. In the dizzyingly slow pace of the small moments in Schultze’s life of leisure, he polishes up the garden gnomes, learns to play chess, visits his old mother and begins to find forced retirement tedious.

The threesome goes about the village on their bicycles, to the great annoyance of the gatekeeper at the railroad crossing (though they’ve done nothing more vexing than stop for the closed gate). Trains speed through and planes fly overhead, then leave the road and the gray sky empty once again. They find merriment and camaraderie in costume parties and casino nights, but the world is limited to the little village, its pub, its music club, its slag heap.

Without a wife like Jürgen’s to prompt him to seek his next career, or one to keep him company like Manfred’s, Shultze spends much time alone in his cottage with his cherished accordion. One evening he stumbles onto a radio station playing a strange version of familiar music. Though the Zydeco sound of the American South is a close cousin to his beloved accordion music, it unsettles Schultze to find it so enticing. In one of many gently comical scenes, he becomes concerned over his new attraction to exotic tastes and seeks the help of his doctor. When a member of their music club is invited to play at a music festival in a sister city in Texas, Schultze accepts the adventure.

Horst Krause is wonderfully expressive in the most subdued way possible in the centerpiece role of Schultze and leads a very capable supporting cast. Showing off the best of what America has to offer to visitors from foreign shores, Schorr’s screenplay amplifies the easy warmth and hospitality of rural Florida, the Louisiana bayou, and Texas. He delineates some cultural differences (Schultze’s tiny bikini bathing suit would mark him as European instantly) but ultimately confirms universal common ground. Schultze exhibits increasing charm with each small encounter in this post-salt-mine chapter of his life. Decidedly male in its outlook, and reminiscent of Bent Hamer’s Kitchen Stories, the slow pace sometimes seems as if there is no story at all in the series of little adventures. Not so, as at the bittersweet conclusion, the film becomes a fully realized and poignant discovery of the essence of Herr Shultze.

Infused with the lively sound of bayou music, the mood of the film, if not the actual pace, picks up speed and wraps us in genuine affection for Schultze and those with whom he crosses paths. The straightforward visual style allows the authenticity of the actors and the non-actors alike, including many musicians, to emerge comfortably. Schorr’s use of locations in Germany and the United States lend a documentary quality to this sweet, fanciful tale and his affection for merging folks and folk music from these two very different places is evident.