I feel somewhat hypocritical from time to time writing DVD reviews for DIMP because at heart, I’m not a “movie” guy.  I’m a reader.  I generally watch anywhere from one to two movies a week at most.  That’s including the ones I watch for DIMP reviews.

However I’ll read easily 50 – 60 books in any given year.  I know this only because I started keeping track in 2004.  I’m an equal opportunity reader, mixing fiction and nonfiction, classics and trash, 800-page biographies and Ghost Rider graphic novels.  All of it goes into this crazy soup of trivial knowledge that occupies the places in my brain most people use for learning something productive.   I just tend to deposit it there and move on to the next book.

For all that reading, I rarely come across something that inspires me.  One notable exception is Allen Weisbecker’s In Search of Captain Zero.  I read this book after friends had hounded me to read it.  It’s not that I didn’t find the premise interesting, it’s just that I had other books lined up on my nightstand.  When I finally did pick it up, I read it in three days, only broken up by having to perform family duties and make money.  It was an amazing read.

Weisbecker documented his road trip from the Northeast coast of the USA to Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica.  While his stated mission was to find an old surfing buddy who had moved down south to find his own little bit of paradise, his actual mission was to rediscover his relationship with the ocean.  Weisbecker is first and foremost a surfer.  He established and ran a lucrative pot smuggling operation in the 1970s and 1980s that existed solely to fund surfing jaunts around the world.  The book follows him as he slowly puts his life in perspective and gains some insight into who he really is.  It’s a book about friendship but also a book about spirituality and purpose.

Reading In Search of Captain Zero inspired me to reexamine my own life, determine what’s really worth pursuing and find balance.  It also made me want to pack up the car and go see what’s out there. 

Filmmaker Michael Ginthor, narrator David Auerbach and three of their friends (all Austrians) felt the same way.  They decided to follow in Weisbecker’s footsteps.  All of them are surfers and all of them left Austria to live in Los Angeles thinking that it would provide them with the answer to their surfing dreams.  However as anyone who has surfed Southern California will tell you, it can be an incredible hassle to even get to the beach, much less deal with the crush of people in the lineup on a good day. 

These five grabbed their cameras, boards, money, some porn to bribe the Federales and took off on a 7,000-mile road trip down the Baja peninsula, across to mainland Mexico and finally down into Costa Rica.  Their goals were to sell the trucks at the end to fund the trip, surf the best spots along the way, meet Weisbecker (who at the time still lived in Costa Rica) and come back with something they could write about to make a little more money.  They weren’t looking to get rich.  They were looking to break even and more importantly they were looking to find balance. 

The result, Zen and Zero, is a movie made almost exclusively for surfers.  Mostly made up of incredible surf footage and scenery accompanied by Herwig Maurer’s unbelievably awesome score, the movie captures the realities of making such a trip, from breakdowns to broken boards.  All of this is done with no emphasis on brand names, sponsorships or corporate leanings.  It’s all about the ride, not the gear. 

In fact, Auerbach’s narration weaves philosophical wonderings within the narrative of the trip itself, emphasizing the “zen” in the title.  Casual viewers who aren’t privy to the surf lifestyle or even the feeling of being on a wave may miss the point.  This is especially true when Auerbach begins talking about how surfers riding a wave are at the zero point (meaning literally they are existing at sea level and drawing comparisons between that and the zen-like mind state while riding within a tube of green water).  That said, surfers will revel in it.  Additionally, anyone who has read Weisbecker’s book will enjoy seeing the places he documented and witnessing the breaks and swells he describes so lovingly.

Zen and Zero may not be for everyone, but it’s definitely worth deciding that for yourself.  I urge you to pick this up. 


Presentation
The film was shot in 16mm and I have to say that the editing and transfer on this are marvelous.  It’s a great looking film and its grainy presentation fits the feel of the trip perfectly.

Additionally, I have to again point out that this score is phenomenal.  I’ve actually ripped the audio from the entire film to mp3 just to listen to it on my iPod.  

Extras
There isn’t much here.  You get two music videos of the band playing the intro and outro music with some random shots from the film thrown in.  You get some question and answer sessions from the European premiere but none are in English so I didn’t get much out of them.  You also get trailers and a slideshow.

The Bottom Line
Zen and Zero is a great surf flick and anyone who has experienced the feeling of riding on a wave or has read Weisbecker’s book should do themselves a favor and check out this film.