Every filmmaker dreams of meeting their favourite director. So when aspiring filmmaker David Sieveking had the opportunity, he begins his film David Wants to Fly with a trip to the United States to hear David Lynch speak about his passion for Transcendental Meditation, a movement founded by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi—who also inspired, among others, The Beatles and Donovan. Sieveking is granted an interview with Lynch, who encourages him to try meditation for himself, as a means for personal success. Sieveking follows this advice and it seems to work for a bit: he does get financing for his film script, but then his girlfriend moves away to New York. And as Sieveking delves deeper into the Transcendental Meditation organization after the death of the Maharishi, he witnesses an ugly power struggle in the upper echelons of the movement and begins to see TM as a corrupt business and quite possibly a scam. At first, Sieveking is given almost complete access to the organization and the Rajas, or “executives”; as soon as he starts asking questions, they try to stop his film. The film is an odd and yet engaging combination of personal discovery and doc investigation. Sieveking is the main character in this story, as well as the director; this is often a recipe for a bad doc, but Sieveking uses the technique to his advantage.
