Thanks to everyone involved!

Read more about it here.

As Mr. Leigh stated, it was very difficult for him to chose the 12 “right” ones, amongst the thousands he was inspired for his own directing work.

Mike’s list:

1. Carlton-Browne of the F.O. (Roy Boulting, Jeffrey Dell, 1958)
2. Room At The Top (Jack Clayton, 1959)
3. Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (Karel Reisz, 1960)
4. KES (Ken Loach, 1969)
5. Boudu Saved from Drowning (Jean Renoir, 1932)
6. Vivre Sa Vie (Jean-Luc Godard, 1962)
7. Tokyo Story (Yasujirô Ozu, 1953)
8. Mahanagar (Satyajit Ray, 1963)
9. Radio Days (Woody Allen, 1987)
10. The Tree with the Wooden Clogs (Ermanno Olmi, 1978)
11. The Death of Mr. Lazarescu (Cristi Puiu, 2005)
12. Songs From The Second Floor (Roy Andersson, 2000)

I am transferring my webpage from joomla to wordpress. I finally found an amazing theme “classica” to make this switch. It’s very effortless so far.

It was about time!

Years back, he did an awesome job on the end titles of my shortfilm Monitio and designed the webpage. He opened my eyes to graphic design and typography, and a meeting with him is always a very intense discussion. You have to watch your arguments, because if you don’t, he will rip you apart and you will look like an idiot. He’s a design-freak with brains in overdrive mode.

After covering ipods, iphone, computers, hookers, graphic design, girls, how to past 30, girls and again girls, I shared my recent raise of enthusiasm of TOP GEAR. And from the rear spoiler of the latest Lamborghini Murcielago SV we came onto the  topic of Luxury.

What is Luxury? How do you define it? How can you find it?

And most importantly, what Luxury probably ISN’T…

I shared the story, when about a month ago,  I went on a coffee with my nemesis friend Vít Karas. We sat outside at cafe Lamborghini. I was a lovely summer day, but it weren’t the short skirts of the girls, that got our attention, but the cars that drove by. Within an hour I saw an Aston Martin DB-9 a Porche 911 GT2 and a Ferrari 350 beeing parked almost next to each other on the other side of the road. What an amazing sight! Technical ingenuity paired with curvy seduction made of metal. I stopped paying attention to the conversation, not that the noise of the roaring italian horses would have allowed it anyway…

The initial joy faded away though, as soon as the owners got out of the cars. One by one they looked around, if really everyone on the street is paying attention to them. And when they sat next to us on a table, their behavior and speech were a vulgar mess of the very ordinary men. I admit, that the ability to earn enough to afford such cars gave the owners some credit of the success they have in their life. However, the louder they became, the more uninteresting those men were to me. Because every idiot can buy such a car. But not everyone can handle that fact, that he has enough power and money to do so. They obviously didn’, because what was lacking there was style.

It is like watching an amazing girl in a club dancing. There are those, who dance for the eyes of men. And then there are those who dance because they really, really enjoy it. They would still pump the rhythm, even when nobody would be there. I tend to think that the latter girls are much more interesting than the former.

Expensive cars are often driven quite powerfull people, managers, Google owners, ad agency CEO’s. So far so good.

But there seem to be a world out there, nobody speaks about in public. The world of the dark desires of those gentlemen, the one you only hear about. And indeed, there surely is not a rare supply of those stories - One of Aleš’s friend seems to work as a waiter in some sort of high-class establishment, a castle, where some of those top-level sharks meet … to get their asses whipped by chicks in leather suits called Dominatrixes.

I am sure, you all have heard one or two of those stories. About dark, secret places, where the world seems to be upside down. Where your bad-ass prick of a boss gets shouted and spit in his face. Where he has to bow and follow commands. Some of us may have glimpsed into this kind of world watching Eyes Wide Shut. I believe that it is out there. There are just too many hints that these things exist, as I know about another story told me by Anthony Dweyer from Picturehouse some years back. This guy actually knows a girl who is a Dominatrix. And guess who’s ass she is kicking?

I wonder, why those power-driven ambitious guys have to retreat in a secret environment, where they have to submit themselves to a higher power. It may be, that they are under high stress the whole day, and they need to recharge, by letting someone tell them exactly what to do from time to time. I must say, that when I am honest to myself, it seems, that there is a sadist and a masochist in my persona as well. There is something wicked in the ultimate submission towards another human being, as it is in having the ultimate power over someone.

Richness does not mean luxury for me. Luxury is “sans” the feature crap. It is unplugged. It is the less is more principle. It is the contrary of black rappers bowing under the weight of their golden necklaces and noserings. It is the oppoisite of Russian models in Paris, who wear everything what Prada has produced that year at once …

Confidence is luxury. Believe in yourself. If you do, you seldom have to show off your car collection. You do not need to prove, that you can buy expensive clothes. You do not talk much about what you have accomplished, because people talk about your actions already. The English gentleman of the Victorian era. The man, who almost destroyes the engine of his DB-9 on the weekend racetrack, and yet allows a Golf GT overtake him, as he stops at the crossing to let an old lady pass.

Simplicity is luxury. The joy of the pure and simple.

The problem is, that there is always somebody above you. And there always will be. Someone with more money, more power, more women, cars, nobel prices, oskars, whatever…

I am not saying no to ambitions, but when it comes down to the bare metal of life, it is not your savings-account or your small talk that counts, but what you do. In this very moment.

So, luxury is living. Now.

Carpe fuckin’ Diem.

…

Sorry, I have to go, my Dominatrix forbids me to type more…

These and many other pearls of nonchalant conversation came out of my mouth on a recent, quite important interview of mine. One has to say, that I have been trying to get into such kind of an interview ten times.

I am not kidding.

It is part of an film school application process, on most schools the “round two” of your bare-knuckle fight to get in. So why on earth did I deliver such lines?

Well, the day started out with a computer crash. Let’s just say, you should not install the  boot-loader Chameleon on a mac. If you do, do not reboot. It’s for hackintoshs, not macs. Seriously do not reboot! I did that mistake four hours before the interview…

On top of that, my girlfriend’s notebook was just given away to a 10 day repair, so both our data were on the one I just made unbootable. Without a system DVD, rescue disc or spare partition to boot from, there was not much I could do to fix it. And I have not written down the address of the interview either …

I headed to the Apple Store on Regent Street, and there nobody could really help me. No lending of a system DVD or anything like that. They had no clue how to help me quickly with my destroyed boot loader. A tip: Apple Care does not help you much either, once you admit, that you screwed up the computer yourself.

In Border‘s Starbucks, I waited for half an hour for my order, which they had completely messed up. I have been nervous about the interview the last days, now I was getting exhausted from the perspective of both of us being cut off from all data, email and contacts for the next week.

I mattered my brain, to think of a fast solution, except that there wasn’t any.

To jump out of the frying pan into the fire, I only realized how low-sugared I was, not having eaten the whole day. Caffein surely does not calm you down, for that matter.

I munched what was should have been a relaxing early afternoon tea and found myself in London’s SOHO looking for a building that was supposed to look like an old brewery. Indeed, there it was.

A beaming red door set itself apart from the 19th century industrial colossus with dirty black windows. Someone pinched in the code into the door, to let me in. I kinda understood, how Alice in Wonderland must have felt. The big moment was dawning on me.

One of the things I have observed in life, is that attention to details is everything. It is also the most difficult thing to achieve, as there are so many of those sneaky little details. But their close observations can give you hints of how things will come along.

That being said, the inside of the building was not impressive at all. There it was, one of the most respected institutions of Europe – and it looked like it could use some house-cleaning. Academism is one thing, but mess is one other. Maybe it was this artistry, flamboyant, original, underground Unbearable Lightness of Being, though?

The German part of my soul said: “No man, that’s just one big mess.”

On the reception, I was told to wait. So I did. For 20 minutes.

There was no place to sit, so I examined the nearest floors and the postings on their walls, as I tried forge my first impressions of the place. The typical student searches for rooms, some “award-winning” guys looking for other guys to help them on their “award winning” projects. For free, but for lot of exposure. I have seen that before, at very similar places like this…

I saw 2 guys photographing, what seemed to be some background plates for some VFX shots. The did it next to me on the stairs, under a lamp. No lighting, handheld, I would say about 3 stops underexposed. Shaky. Useless. But boy, did they had the right way to rattle about it. Those guys were eventually about to become my colleagues?

I started to get pissed. I made the trip here voluntarily, voting for a personal meeting over a telephonic interview. The chose the me the date and time. So, why is it so hard to actually be on time?

You might say, this is the typical behavior of a state-institution or an employer, who want to clearly define who and where they think you are from the start. I would agree on that, but this was not the case. You are a client there. You pay a significant amount of money to that institution, it is a business deal, where both sides profit. And even that would not have been the case, it was unprofessional, as I made a 1200km trip and WAS on time!

When they finally came, I have calmed myself down, mostly just trying to swallow my disappointment. The first impression was really not the best of this place. But nothing compare to the one I was about to give …

Although we started calmly, warming up for the first punches, soon the interviewer started to provoke:

Why do you think you are good for this? What do you like about filmmaking? Where do you take your inspiration from? Why are you here? Aren’t you more of a writer, than a director? Everyone wants to be a director…

I love the whole process of creating a film. I like to be in control of the whole piece, not just a part of it. My things are very personal. I am a guy who likes conflicts, because conflicts breed creativity.

How is your relationship to the crew, to your camerman?

If someone is not putting out, I challenge him till he does. I want and expect only the best efforts. From myself and from anyone else. Anything else is intolerable and hurts the project.

Can you work with other students, less experienced than you? Can you work for somebody? Could you work for yourself?

I could, because I would know, that this guys knows what he is doing. If he respects the craft, if I love the script, then yes, I will do everything in my power to help him.

But what if you do not like the script, because for example the students come from other cultures?

I will try to adapt and understand a different culture. However there is craft and rules to filmmaking, you have to follow them and master them, before you break them. If you don’t you, are just a Bohemian wannabe, hiding dilettantism behind what he calls art.

But still, can you work for such a guy?

Don’t expect me to be a monkey for a moron. If this is a blithering idiot, I will not, I never can be at my best. If I hate him, if I hate his ideas, I will not work with him. I would lie, if I say otherwise. However, having not the worst reputation in Europe, I trust you accept only people who are capable.

…

The thing went on and on for an hour. The good-by took around 10 seconds. Both parties were politely smiling, in an English way. I dashed out of the building.

There was no way, this would work. There were things, that I should have never said. I never would, if this was a job. There, when worst comes to worst, you hang on to the fact, that you get a paycheque.

But not here, where applicants were about to drop tuition fees equivalent to a family estate car. Here I subconsciously decided not to wear a mask. They have to put out as well. It is a business in the end.

Only slowly it dawned on me, that the performance I just gave, was one of the most honest of myself on a very, very bad day. Horrible did not even start to describe it.

I started to feel doubt. Isn’t this dream is not rather a nightmare? There is no guarantee for an MA to get hired in this business anyway. In a business, where contacts are the most important thing, where no path is the same, is this institution with its run-down appearance, the right investment?

It stroke me, that the answer for this question will lie in their decision. They have seen the worst of me. Provocative, challenging, angry. I was an arrogant ass, with high technical knowledge and money. Willing to learn, but not willing to swallow everything he is told. One that will challenge those who teach him and pushes back, when pushed.

Even if they accept me, they may just  lack applicants in the recent economic climate…

Or, they are not afraid of people with egos and opinions.

Only then they are the right people to teach me, who eventually will push my limits and I shall forget all I knew about first impressions.

Guess what came three days later?

A yes.

Now hang on, there is someone from LA calling …

“Excuse me, do you mind to give me 15 Czech Crowns?”

The question came out of nowhere.

I was waiting next to the orange wall of a renovated apartment building in Vršovice, Prague. My editor was descending the five stories down to open the door. My mind was going through the editing task, that laid ahead and and I was not really paying much attention to my environment. The sound took me quite by surprise, it invaded my thoughts and pulled the high artistic intentions down to the harsh reality of the street.

I turned around and spotted a tiny blond woman in a subtle black dress. She might have been in her early fifties. She had huge glasses with low dioptrics. Her left hand was shaking a little bit – a movement she tried to suppress as she noticed my gaze.

As in every metropolitan city, you hear this question twice the hour when you walk through Prague. Mostly on tourist spots, from people, who have been living on the streets for a long time and are dressed accordingly. They often have an excuse, such as the need to make an urgent phone call or some other kind of emergency.

But this woman looked different. She obviously did pay attention to her outward appearance, as much as she could. This caught my eye, because I would never expect someone dressed like her, to ask this question. What was going on?

“What do you need it for?” – I shot back. Curious about how creative she would be.

“I would like to buy some wine.”

Boom! There it was. Pure and honest.

I looked into her eyes and saw how dignity just lost the battle with the demon.

Now it all made sense: The light smell that surrounded her was the sweat of cheap wine. Her sudden appearance came from a 24/7 bar next door, that I did not notice in my dreamy state of mind. She stood there, asking for money to buy food for her demon. She could have been my mother. I tried not to judge her. Alone the fact, that she came up to me, beeing that honest must have been devastating for her. And impressive to me. It was all there in her eyes and it took my breath.

I could not say a word anymore. I gave her half of what I had in my wallet. She asked if I was living nearby, that she would give the money back another day. I asked her to accept it, without worries and that she should drink one on me.

She walked away, but not back into the bar like I thought she would. Her shaky hands stored the money in a purse and I noticed how underfeed she was. And yet she looked like anyone else. An older lady in a black dress walking down the street. Nothing special, nothing scary. Yet, the personification of Lynch’s horror in bright daylight.

This got me thinking, of what I have done. I will not deny that I hate it being asked for money, for contributions of any kind or for “good deeds” left and right, when I just walk down the street in whichever big city. Yes, these people annoy me, they annoy my sight, and some of them seem to be very professional at what they are doing.

I am honest here, because I would be a hypocrite and a liar, if I would say otherwise. I think, that I work hard myself, that what I have, I have earned. I do not want to carry the misery of strangers on my shoulders. I do not want to be manipulated into a feeling of guilt. I cannot solve those problems, this I do not want to see them really. I do not want to feel responsible. I want to shout into their faces, “You have all your limbs, for Christ sake, how about getting up and try to get a job?”

Yeah, like it is that simple…

I know that the government should take care of such problems. I like to think that way. I also do not want to see that social problems. I want to stay in my comfort zone. I do not want to see other people, who were so much less fortunate then myself. All I want, is to keep the right to complain about life, people, everyone and everything.

Of course, I have never been homeless. What do I know? But I know how it is not to have money. Our family fled from a communist regime and had to start from zero in another country after all. But not everyone has the abilities we had to work up to a better place.

So, what to do? I will not help a homeless person, or a beggar by giving him money. This may solve his problem for the day, but not for the next. It’s giving a fish, rather than to teach how to fish. I also do not get my kick by giving a donation and then staying in the illusion that I will “make a difference”, because that is bullshit.

I guess the most one can do, is to respect the dignity of the other. I was trying to behave this way with this woman. I gave her what she asked. I accepted her gratitude, and that was it. Have I done it, because I felt guilty? Because I felt sorry for her?

I don’t think so, because everything happened too quick. I think the reason was, that she was just being honest and I was impressed by the internal struggle I saw in here eyes.

Maybe I was happy, not to have this problem? Till this very moment I don’t know, if I feel good, or bad about it. All I am is confused, as this problem is complex and seems to be over my head. How easy it is, to just go with the pre-judgment and simplify it to black and white!

What I know, though, is that I saw a demon. He looked at me through eyes he had possessed. We looked at each other, and I blinked first and he was laughing. He may still till now, as he scared the hell out of me and made me think.

Maybe this is all he wanted?

Ok, that has been around in every newspaper and blog and twitter. The sales of his albums went through the roof and every club has now a MJ week or month. None of this really matters in this writing. This is about my experience, of being far more shocked about MJ’s death, than I ever would have thought…

I was never a real Michael Jackson fan. Of course I adored his music, his dancing and his music videos. When I was 15 and started to be aware of his roots and the brilliancy of his first albums, he was already at the “Earthsong” stage. I did not really like it. But nevertheless, I did spent hours dancing at the Sunday afternoon parties at Burgblick, Oberviechtach, Germany. I wore a hat and a 3.5 meter long scarf, that my grandmother made for me. Among the hardcore Oberpfalzian natives, I surely appeared as a boy with a very, very troubled mind and childhood.

Then came Metallica, Guns ‘n’ Roses, Rammstein, Dio, AC/DC, Iron Maiden, Rock im Park and their metal tones slowly forged cophosis into my ears, while executing Michael out of them. Ten years later, I arrived at Four Seasons from Vivaldi and the zombies from Thriller did not visit even my worst nightmare anymore. MJ seemed to be eradicated from my memory for good.

Execpt, that he wasn’t.

The minute I heard the news of his death, all those childhood and teen memories kicked back in. I remembered the videos I watched, the recordings of the giga-concerts, I wished to have seen live. The moves, the moonwalk. Everything.

Maybe it is because he was always there. He was already the King of Pop, when I started to listen to music. An era already so huge, that it took very long, to consume it all. Something in your life, like a place or grandparents, that always have been there, and you live along with the naive assumption that this will never change.

Strangely, I never really believed any of the accusations against MJ. Maybe I did not want to. I was on a different music by that time, sure, but I realize now, that I always considered Michael Jackson more as an unreal product, a ghost, rather than a person. A product to be entertained by, to be consumed at wish. You may think, that this just goes along with fame and is the result of PR, but I actually NEVER thought of Michael as a human beeing! And that scared me at first.

I do not feel ashamed though, because I would be a hypocrite, trying to sweat a sensitive vain all in sudden. He was presented to the world as a product. That was part of the game. As an asexual thing, to be turned on and off, twisted and bend. A thing, you put away, if you do not need it, and that you can pull back, if you feel like it.

So why so many thoughts? I may realize, that he was a human after all. That he must have lived a hell of a life, and that he must have suffered. And yet I know nothing. I never will. I certainly am sad, that I will never see a concert of him. That is again, the consumer in me, the egoist.

But deep inside I feel, that an era is ending. A great artist is dead. What has been always in my life is now lost and I feel old.

To put it simple: It sucks!

Long live the King.

When you are twenty five, you really do not lose one thought on it. But when you are twenty nine, you are facing the inevitable reflection of everything you have done with your life so far. Not sure about others, but from a lot of escapades I had heard of, not everybody takes it lightly.

I did take it lightly. Or I thought so.

I was spending seven weeks Kauai and I sorta felt, that 12500 km from home, the becoming-thirty-crisis will not find me. I was quite wrong, to be honest. So this is the story how I coped with it…

Crazy, but not cute

I used to do a lot of unnecessary and scary things when in highschool. It may have been the loud outcry of a guy, who never fitted really into the world he had to live in. Bavaria is a nice place on earth, but not when you are full of testosterone and Czech genes, not understanding the spoken language at all..

Trashing cars, party rooms, other people’s property stopped being attractive, as years passed by and so did having a headache of the size of K2 twice the weekend. The urge and hunger for extremes, however never left my brain. I fed it with some insane short film productions here and there and all was good.

Onwards Kauai!

When the incredible wonderful, but insane girl, that happens to be my girlfriend and me decided to go to Kauai for 7 weeks, the first thing I looked to, was if there is a mountain to climb. And surely I found one: Waialeale. The wettest spot on earth, a sacred mountain for the native Kauaians. I was sure, that climbing this would be a piece of cake.

I gathered all available info on it, and after I found the Waialeale Basecamp, I was not sure if this cake would not be too big to eat. Experienced hikers only. Take two GPS. You can become a hogmeal. In the purgatory, noone hears you scream. Do not do it.

That is basically the message of the page. We were not trained. Didn’t had any previous camping experience together and neither did we posses the right gear.

So the whole idea was basically off the table and I decided to think about this option after we arrive on Kauai and see the situation ourselves.

On Kauai

7 weeks on an island that measures 45x50km seems way too long. But Kauai’s raw and brutal natural beauty needs its time. We did about 10 hikes, and then we met a former boing 747 captain. “Do you know Esspresso Con Grapa?” – this was the question he asked. 5 hours later we still sat at Java Kai cafe listening to his stories. Not all of them had a happy end and as we become friends with him and his wife

We hovered around the temple in the center of the monastery. It is not supposed to be photographed, and I wandered around the entrance, not sure if i am allowed to enter it or not. “Only for meditation and ceremonials” – the sign read. One might be the nonchalant tourist at times, to get the photograph, one wants, stepping over fences, ignoring signs with nasty names like “private property” and similar. But this was something different. A spiritual place, that I intended to respect, even when the concept of “enlightment” not something I lean into.

On our way out we came across Paramacharya Palaniswami, who seemed to have realized that we are the last ones of our tour on our way to the exit. I could not help but ask, if I may enter the temple, even when I am neither meditating nor a believer. “Sure, you can have a quite time there. Let’s call it meditation.” – he blinked at me.

Ok. A monk with a sense of humor. Never saw that coming. I ended up spiking him with questions about the strictness and discipline of a monk’s life. He has to attend a morning ceremony at 4:30 am EVERY day. If you are a second late, you have to do other monk’s work for that day. “It happens sometimes. Mostly when we forget to put new batteries into our alarm clocks”. Apart from that, he lives in a stone building, sleeping on a mattress, without electricity and plumbing. (Kinda like the wooden hut, build by my grandfather on the stream Kocaba in Czech Republic.)

He shared his view on the strictness and discipline. A point I never heard anyone to put like that. “You see, I consider myself as an athlete. In order to become a master, in order to reach enlightenment, I have to train. And it is very hard. Most people cannot go through that. Imagine the day of Michael Phelbs. The training, repetition and discipline he has to go through, in order to be the fastest swimming human being on the planet. This permanent exercise lead him to 7 or how much gold medals he won. I hope to achieve that for myself on the path of enlightenment. Becoming a master.”

I stood there for a while, thinking hard, while Palaniswami thanked me for posing the right question.

Palaniswami is the editor in chief of the Monastery’s publications for offline and online communications. So no, they are not in the 14th century quite, like one might easily conclude. Email, Facebook, GoogleBooks – be careful not to be caught a technological idiot in front of this orange-robe wearing man, who’s blue eyes look into your soul.