The Genius of Louis Van Gasteren

Above is a segment of the film Nema Aviona Za Zagreb by the Dutch experimental filmmaker Louis van Gasteren. The 17 minute segment is in the center of the film, and can be looked at as a film in itself, as it has a beginning, middle, and end of its own.

Van Gasteren filmed Meher Baba for this segment. After meeting Van Gasteren and watching him work, Meher Baba said he was a genius. I wish to show by using this segment how correct Meher Baba was.

The film starts as Van Gasteren is teaching his son that there are many angles from which life can be viewed. Their observations along a roadside in Holland make a perfect metaphor for the notion of alternative conceptual ways of framing things. This is no accident. The film is about to take on 3 simultaneous points of view, of 3 very different people, of the same set of facts. This first scene ends with a helicopter shot, symbolizing the bird's eye view that Louis will try to maintain for the rest of the segment.

Next we learn that in pursuit of knowing other ways of seeing the world, Louis legally experiments with LSD. In reality, such LSD sessions were conducted under medical supervision for depression that Louis had experienced since the death of his parents.

Louis Van Gasteren, 1922-1916

Now the arch of the story changes as Louis reads in a newspaper that a boy in San Francisco died on LSD, after believing he could fly, and jumping out a window. Louis goes to Germany to meet the parents of the boy, and you hear of the tragedy from their point of view. The parents are doing their best to cope with the loss of their son, that they fail to understand.

Touched by this, Louis goes to Millbrook, NY to discuss this incident with the "LSD guru" Timothy Leary. Here now we have the second perspective on the tragic event. Timothy is unrepentant and compares the boy's death to the death of an astronaut who dies for a greater cause.

Finally Louis flies to India to meet with the guru Meher Baba, and ask him what to make of all this. This now is the third perspective. Baba tells him that drugs are not what their progenitors claim they are, do not induce real spiritual experiences, and are harmful mentally, physically, and spiritually. Baba adds that those who continue to use such drugs go mad.

Van Gasteran now returns to Millbrook (at least through editing) and we see that Baba was right, as Leary proceeds to tell Louis that the only words Meher Baba ever spoke were 'Don't Worry, Be Happy.' We leave seeing Baba's words appearing to come true, as Leary does in fact seem to be losing his mind.

Van Gasteren resolves this segment on his return to his family after these long excursions, explaining that he stopped taking LSD after they were made illegal, but that they had helped him with his depression, something Baba himself predicted they could do in his writings on the chemical.

The 17 minute segment winds up coming full circle, having expressed what was foreshadowed in the beginning by the close moments with his son. The film turns out to be about perspective, exploration, and finding truth.