A couple of years ago I saw a documentary about a man from Slovenia who drinks a lot, eats a lot, gambles a lot and swims… A LOT. His name is Martin Strel and the documentary was ”Big River Man”
The movie was jaw dropping. This normal (almost) man facinated me. ”Big River Man” is about an attempt to swim the Amazon River (6,400 km) to raise awareness about enviromental situation in the great rainforest of the Amazonia. Or what is left of it.
In the beginning of the movie you get to know Martin Strel. You meet him as he is training back home in Slovenia, how he is multitasking whilst driving drunk and many other amusing details on how to mould a superhero. But it is also a gripping story about having a mission and going through with it. The scenes are strong, funny and disgusting at times. Some archive footage is showing how Martin is swimming past dead bodies in the Yangtze River, China. Images that makes it quite clear what kind of extraordinary stunts this man is up to.
The movie immediately became a favourite. It even qualified it to the list of movies I consider good enough to recomend my father to watch. So I saw it many times and just recently, once again. As I watched it the last time I decided I wanted to meet this guy. So before I went to Ljubljana last week I posted an e-mail to the info address i found on Martins website:
Hello Martin.
I hope you are fine. Since I am a big fan of yours and concider you to be a major inspiration I would like to invite you to our show that will play in Ljubljana between 27-31 December 2011.
It would be a great honour for me if you could come and see one of our shows. Of course you can bring a friend : )
Hope to hear from you.
All the best
//David Eriksson, Sthlm, Sweden
The same evening I got an e-mail from Borut, his son and manager, saying that they would come.
Me and Martin after our show in Ljubljana
To meet him after the show was great. Martin and Borut came on our opening night in Ljubljana. They were super excited about the show and said so many sweet things about us. Martin even called me a genious and thinking about that I feel like I have given something back to him for what he gave to me with his movie.
He was very easy going man and we spoke about swimming, about training and about eating and drinking of course. We also planned out how we should hook up during our week in Lubljana and he gave us some copies of his DVD. Signed of course. ”For David. The best circus artist.”
Unfortunatly our week in Slovenia turned out a little bit different than expected so we didnt get a chance to meet up again. Its a shame. It would have been great to speak more with him about his adventures, his plans and his big enviroment protective motives with his swimming.
If you wanna know more about Martin and his adventures check out his website:
www.martinstrel.com