Zen & Zero - Premium Meditation Cushion Set for Yoga, Mindfulness & Relaxation - Perfect for Home, Studio & Outdoor Use

Product Description An austrian surf film! Review ....but then Pat went and made a recommendation, and my sense of the surf movie canon collapsed.? Pat suggested Zen & Zero, a film touted as a cinematic slice of pure Hunter S. Thompson gonzo, but which seems to me to be a lot closer to Wim Wenders' Buena Vista Social Club. It's about five Austrians - yes, Austrians - and their surfari from California to Costa Rica, where they meet a slightly dazed but eminently lucid Allan Weisbecker, the enigmatic author of In Search of Captain Zero. En route they score some Puerto Escondido surf that is is stirring as the film's (surely Ry Cooder inspired?) soundtrack, and also run into an Austrian surfing legend whose attempt to introduce the concept of "easy-going" to his countrymen was so successful that he decided to emigrate to the Canary Islands.??There are great waves throughout, but this is no ordinary surf movie. The film-makers co-opt Robert Musil, one of the 20th century's more challenging writers, into their quest, for their aim is "to research the myth of the surfer dude with what Musil called 'exactness in emotional matters'." In effect, they bring a European sensibility of analysis and reflection to something which is often characterised by its absolute non-engagement with introspection.? Is this a good thing? Or have they all smoked more weed than even Weisbecker in his drug-smuggling former life???Well, I've just watched the film for the second time. Its only flaw is that it's not long enough. It's a mesmerising piece of cinema: - subtle, self-deprecating, inspiring and even a little profound. I can't think of anything quite like it, save for the similarly enriching Buena Vista. The music is as irresistible as the left-handers of Pavones, and the cinematography a world away from a run-of-the-mill gonzo flick. It'll have you heading for Costa Rica in no time, and it'll make you think twice about writing off a surfer from a land-locked country ever again.??But now I've got some thinking to do. Five guys from Austria go and unlock the heart of stoke, and my surf movie canon needs a reappraisal. Zen & Zero is up there with the best of 'em..... -- LONDON TIMES (January 2007)If you ever needed reassurance that the rebel heart of surfing is still beating strong under the slow strangulation of rampant mainstreaming, this film is for you. Zen and Zero, which explores the ambiguous metaphors of surfing through the dust-choked eyes of five transplanted Austrians on the quintessential pig-latitude road-trip, swept Best Story and Best Director at this year's X-Dance film festival and continues to garner trophies on its international festival run. Employing a hardboiled Hunter S. Thompson-esque narration style crossed with a driving, surf-meets-Spaghetti-Western soundtrack (masterfully scored by Herwig Maurer), this soulful 16mm film lets you ride shotgun on a 7,000-mile surfing pilgrimage, complete with flat tires, Federales and happy buzzards feasting on bloated road-kill. Paying tribute to Bruce Brown's 1960 classic, Surf Crazy, the crew of amiable Austrians journeys the length of the Pan-American Highway from Los Angeles to Costa Rica in search of Captain Zero and the zeitgeist of Dudeness.? Funded mostly on the film-makers' credit cards, Zen and Zero is refreshingly free of gratuitous logo shots and forced sponsored-rider antics, proving that surfing is not so much about riding a wave as living on one. - Steve Barilotti -- SURFER MAG (Oktober 2006)Perhaps the best film in the category (TO THE MAXX)--and maybe one of the true hidden treasures of the entire Santa Barbara Film Festival 2007--is "Zen and Zero", a gritty, melodic, surf-stuffed tale of five Austrian surfers looking for philisophical enlightenment and waves on the road from Los Angeles to where the road ends in Costa Rica. Made with a shoestring budget and shot in 16mm, this movie has been taking festival audiences by the storm for the last year. -- SANTA BARBARA INDEPENDENT (January 2007)Zen and Zero??A film Michael Ginthor ??..We are like sailors who unable to dismantle their ship in the safety of a dock must reconstruct it on the open sea... Thus the philosopher Otto Neurath defines the existential premise of Zen and Zero, and from it this rather shabby but elegant noir opus sets its edge and glides languidly forward between a wave of innocent early 21st century longing and a reef of seasoned European nihilism.??..I always thought I was a surfer dude at heart,.. narrator Michael Ginthor begins. ..Too bad I came from landlocked Austria... Ginthor moved to L.A. but quickly realized that ..true dudeship lies elsewhere...??This is a film in search of some true dudeship, as coauthors and filmmakers Ginthor (director) and Philipp Manderla (producer) and three pals (yep, five Austrians) head off south on a classic surf trip .. a.k.a. a voyage of discovery. In this case a voyage of two discoveries. First, they're looking for waves and surf enlightenment. Second, they've got in mind a sort of guru: the novelist Allan Weisbecker, who lives and surfs at the end of the road in Costa Rica. That's their Omega Point. Witty, philosophical, and narrated in noir style, the film (and the journey) is peppered with dozens of pithy aphorisms that seem to mean something and sometimes do. For instance: ..When the answer can't be put into words, neither can the question.. and ..Looking for the Zero Moment when nature exhibits its forces in their purest form... And, when Weisbecker finally makes his appearance, just after they've surrendered their attachment to finding him, he asks them: ..How do you describe a moment when there's nothing going on in your head?..??Nice waves are had along the way at Puerto and elsewhere, the cinematography of David Auerbach and is gritty and excellent, and Steinitz'.. editing is nuanced and truly brilliant. The film (which deals much with the mundane of travel) is buoyed and carried along on original music by Herwig Mauer .. really fantastic.??Winner of Best Story and Best Director at January..s X-Dance Festival, Zen and Zero is a great ride .. but languid .. and almost reluctantly inspired. Sort of the epitome of surfer style and .. maybe even .. true dudeship.??.. Drew Kampion -- SURFER'S PATH (Oktober 2006)