The Captain’s Log Book 46
Amsterdam, June 2026

Lof der zotheid

The Movie Newspaper, June 2026
Karin Wolfs
Photo: Marja de Vries

 

Sailing to the horizon on the legendary theatre ship Azart in this home-movie-style ode to its foolhardy captain.

The name “Azart”, as skipper August Dirks christened his 1916 drift logger converted into a theater ship in the late eighties, stands for fire, for passion. The word is related to the English ‘hazard’ and the French ‘par hasard’ (by accident). As Dirks moves his hands from left to right like crashing waves, he explains its meaning. It ranges from bad luck via destination, good fortune, coincidence, chance, and “difficult undertaking” to the Russian “the energy with which you put everything at stake”.

The latter is exactly what Dirks did when he turned his back on regulated civilian life and embraced freedom for a thirty-year adventure, which, incidentally, turns out to be damn hard work. If the wiry, tall blond man in clogs, with sea-blue eyes and a poetic disposition, had a plan at all, it was to follow the Dutch colonial trade routes in a better way: “playing instead of stealing, sharing and caring instead of killing.”

On his voyages, the visionary captain was accompanied by a colorful troupe of crew members arriving and departing: a delightfully unpredictable, uninsured, unruly bunch on an ancient, leaky ship. While their fearless attitude already bore witness to an infectious anarchism back then, in today’s over-regulated era, which has elevated ‘safety’ to a stifling mantra, it serves as a refreshing source of inspiration.

The occasion for this retrospective is the Azart’s final voyage, which presents itself in 2020 when the captain is diagnosed with an incurable illness. But the seasoned Dirks refuses to be fazed by the specialist’s alarming verdict: “Fortune favours fools.” His journey has always been a chain of failed plans, broken promises, and unexpected encounters; nothing is set in stone. Dirks’ gaze remains light and fixed on the horizon: he sets out in search of a new destination for his ship, on the other side of the world.

Through home-movie-style footage created by crew members and snippets of beautiful stop-motion animation, we become part of the thirty-year adventure of this madcap captain and his floating work of art. A cheerful collection of foolish performances, impressions, anecdotes, and remarkable encounters passes by. In his clashes with the authorities, the captain holds up a mirror to society. The world is a nut house, the ship the expression of a dream come true. From where you can end up if you live with surrender, trust, and a lack of embarrassment instead of the fear of failure; how beautiful life is when you can see pleasure and beauty in nonsense and failure. Whoever considers the world home finds friends everywhere, Dirks teaches: “Life is coming, sharing, going.”