The Austrian soul

Last night we went to see “RUSH”. Daniel Brühl as Niki Lauda is actually very entertaining with his Austria-English. He is really good in doing the “rat face” and performs well as the bitchy and talented driver from Vienna. The story: young Niki Lauda’s and young James Hunt’s lifelong battle against each other, starting in the 70s. It was an interesting lesson in Austrian thinking, the Austrian state of mind. When Niki Lauda lay in his hospital bed after his big accident, almost dying, a priest gave him the last blessing. But Lauda still had the power to tell him to fuck off. He wasn’t dead yet and afterwards he drove better than ever. The writer Thomas Bernhard (Austrian) has a similar story. When he was very young, he got sick, he almost died of pneumonia. The priest had said “goodbye” to little Thomas, but he wasn’t ready to go. He became one of the most important writers, a master of mean. The Austrian soul is interesting. It is extremely hard on itself, it doesn’t know joy, but it is never ready to give up, it is protestant, harsh and it needs a constant life and death experience to go on. James Hunt, the party dude from London, comes across as the biggest catholic next to Lauda. Happy, drunk, but unable to concentrate, easily satisfied, he doesn’t need the life and death thing. He just needs regular anxiety and vomits before every race. But in the end the Austrian wins. Because he could never accept to be forgotten, which is, of course, very human.