"David Wants to Fly"is a documentary from 2010 that is partially in the German and partially in the English language. The writer and director here is David Sieveking. And in order to make sure we don't forget that, he also appears in this film from start to finish basically. This is also my biggest problem with this movie. I found it really unbearable how he was putting himself into the spotlight of this 95-minute documentary. What is the subject here? Well, it is not really clear. That even rhymes. Early on, we hear about the filmmakers' ambitions to go see a certain convention because his idol, filmmaker David Lynch, is also holding a speech there, but the longer the film goes the more it turns into a critical discussion on Transcendental Meditation and whether it is a profit organization or can actually bring enlightenment to people. Sieveking himself is seeking enlightenment in this film as well. I was actually close to giving it one star out of five and I can see why some people would. But eventually, I will be a bit more generous because there is some information on TM and I had never heard of them before, so it had a bit of an informative value for me. However, still the sequences with his girlfriend and her mother and this strange preparation where she sits in a tiny room and then the break-up between Sieveking and his girlfriend felt all so unauthentic, fake and staged. I have no doubt that a lot of it was scripted for sure for dramatic purposes in a film where the maker's relationship status has absolutely no business being a part of. I guess they wanted to make this look like a more personal approach with this film, but it all went wrong. Sieveking has a tendency for that also looking at the film he made about his mother later on, where I am sure that a lot besides the death was also scripted. Anyway, we will talk about that one on another occasion I guess. His work somewhat reminds me of the approach Werner Herzog is taking, but Herzog still manages to tell great stories and even if we see him too on many occasions in his many many works, you never get the impression that he wants to be in the center of it all, in an almost narcissist fashion. I give this one a thumbs-down and highly recommend not to check it out.

Or was it medicate? Seriously though: With a lot of faux documentaries making their rounds, I had to check if they were making stuff up here. Because it wasn't really that entertaining as "Exit through the Gift shop" to name one of the best in recent history. But no the sect/cult/mediation group depicted in this actually really exists. And you may shocked by this, but they want your money.

I know right? But they offer you so much. Like enlightenment and probably immortality and you know other stuff you crave. Obvious comparisons to Scientology are at hand and there has been a documentary or two about them too. And quite a few good ones, I just recently watched one that really got into the jist of it. This one right here is not a bad effort, but it does feel like a school play. There's a moment where the girlfriend (or not) of the director/star of the movie says "they should not treat you like a film student". Which sounds like a valid point overall and is expressing frustration. Accidentally though it is also revealing. Because if you want to be treated a certain way, you also have to behave a certain way. Or have the charisma to carry out that, let's call it swagger.

Something our director here does not have in abundance. I'm not trying to be mean here by the way, just keeping it real. This documentary is bizarre to put it mildly and also fascinating to a degree. When it comes to its theme. Because mediation itself is a good thing. And that's one of the things the movie does seem to get right in the end ... pun intended

A young director, who adores David Lynch, wants to learn transcendental meditation. He approaches TM with an unbiased naivety which is slightly shocking. But soon he detects more and more discrepancies in the TM organisation. The TM guys, including Mr Lynch, who at first were very cooperative, now want him to stop filming. When Sieveking begins to meet TM renegades, the organisation gets outright hostile. Lynch threatens to sue him. The film, however, stays pure record-keeping of events. And Sieveking turns to the source. He flies to India to visit the monastery where Marashiri learned his meditation. The successor of Marashiri's teacher says that Marashiri was a crook who had no right to teach meditation and sends Sieveking to the spring of the Ganges for enlightenment. Again, Sieveking does not challenge the words of the guru. The film takes the viewer on a journey. It's Sieveking's journey. Sieveking has not tried to edit the earlier material in the light of his later experiences. And exactly that is what makes this documentary so lively.