Modes of masculinity, colonialism, and still-living history are dished out and dissected in the most offhand manner in this drily told character study.

It follows a bunch of aging, working-class roustabouts from Germany to a remote spot in Bulgaria, where they’re sent to build a new power plant. They’re drunks and troublemakers, and the crew chief lives up to the worst stereotypes of German tourists. But one crinkly loner (played by Meinhard Neumann, who heads a non-pro cast) really makes an effort to cross language and bad-memory barriers to connect with suspicious locals. That is, these Westerners go East and one of them goes native. There’s no white horse in these slow-motion shenanigans, but writer-director Valeska Grisebach, who worked on Toni Erdmann, is less interested in totemic showdowns than in the small gestures and preconceptions that make one culture strange—or appealing—to another. The two-hour effort requires patience, but rewards it, too.