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I don’t like to admit it, but I am a sucker for surfer films, at least
the ones that show surfers riding the waves in some expectation of
their reaching philosophical nirvana. Otherwise, why surf, or better
yet, why drive thousands of miles in often horrible conditions, as
some young men do, in search of that one, or if they are lucky, a
number of difficult to catch waves. I do not surf. Surfing, though
gives me vicarious pleasure, the best kind because it does me no
physical or spiritual harm.
Knowing this, take a minute with me as I review a recent likeable
documentary film called “Zen and Zero.” It is about a trip five
Austrian filmmakers, refugees, if you will, from a landlocked country
in Europe, take from Los Angeles, to Baja, through Mexico, Guatemala,
El Salvador, Honduras, and, to their final destination, Costa Rica. In
Los
 Angeles they buy two used cars, take their surf boards, probably a
change or two of clothing, I assume some extra cash, 2 DVX-100
cameras, a still camera or two and head into the wilderness of
free-wheeling beach communities across the upper half of the southern
hemisphere. Surprisingly, the cars hold up over rough roads and heavy
driving. They later sell the cars to have enough money to return to
L.A. They shoot everything in 24P mode to fit more material onto the
screen, edit on Final Cut Pro and then color correct their work to
Digital Beta. The quality of their pictures surprised them as it did
me.
The movie runs 60 minutes and my interest rarely flagged. The shooting
was of high quality, the editing clever and smart, the story sometime
compelling.
Knowing what the filmmakers did, and taking the trip with them as they
did it, I could see they had a good time on their journey. I find it
difficult to single out any one person on the team because it seems
they all did a little bit of everything. It is a truly cooperative
effort. The five young men are Michael Ginthor, David Auerbach, Jacob
Polacsek, Philip Manderla and Edwin Steinita. Mostly I enjoyed
accompanying these men on their journey but I had problems with a
number of facets of the movie.
An original score by Herwig Mauer accompanies the film and usually
sets the right tone, but I sometimes found it boring and overbearing.
Less music and more natural sound would have been a better compliment
to the pictures.
 At times the voiceover, though good, descriptive and with not too many
words filling my ears, was pretentious and had too much potted
philosophy, as if the filmmakers needed reassurance about their
mission, or the mission of surfers everywhere. Sometimes, especially
in a documentary, the less said about why you are doing something,
meaning finding and filling the screen and the air with someone else’s
psychology and philosophy, is better than saying too much to justify
the reasons for the movie. Pictures and natural sound really do tell a
story.
As much as I enjoyed the film, I had one other problem with it. As I
toured with the crew, I learned about their cars, the roads they
drove, the countryside, the beaches, the towns and villages, some of
the people living in them, the waves and watching surfers doing what
they do best, surfing. I know the star of the movie was the journey
and the surfing that went with it, but I believe the audience deserved
to know more about the individuals on the trip, who they were, and to
hear them in words spoken to the camera explaining why they were on
their quest. Those personal thoughts in someone’s own words, even in
German with subtitles, rather than the words of a narrator were
missing. It would have allowed me to feel more a part of the
adventure. Seeing the journey was not enough. But the filmmakers are
young, so maybe next time.
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At NBC News for 35 years, Ron Steinman was bureau chief
in Saigon, Hong Kong and London, was a senior producer on Today and wrote
and produced for Sunday Today. At ABC News Productions, he produced
and wrote documentaries for A&E, TLC, Discovery, Lifetime and the
History Channel. He has a Peabody, a National Headliner award, a
National Press Club award, a International Documentary Festival Gold
Camera Award, two American Women in Radio & Television awards and
has been nominated for five Emmy's. He is a partner in
Douglas/Steinman Productions, whose latest documentary, "Luboml: My
Heart Remembers," aired on PBS' WLIW/21 and the History Channel in
Israel, April 29, 2003. He is the author of, "The Soldiers 'Story",
"Women in Vietnam," and most recently, "Inside Television's First
War: A Saigon Journal," University of Missouri Press, 2002. |
