The Price Of Survival (De prijs van overleven) is a 2003 documentary film by Dutch director Louis van Gasteren and a sequel to Begrijpt U Nu Waarom Ik Huil? (Do You Understand Now Why I Cry?).
The documentary is about the impact of post-traumatic stress syndrome on the family of a Nazi concentration camp survivor named Joop. Joop cannot forget his experiences in a concentration camp during World War II and these emotions are transferred to his wife Dina and their three children. The eldest son and daughter have long since lost contact with their parents and respond in the documentary only by letter. The youngest son Reinier, together with his wife Hadelinde, stayed in contact with his parents. Joop died in 2000, yet the camp experiences are seemingly 'inherited,' as Joop's descendants continue to pay the emotional price of his survival. The Price Of Survival won the Golden Calf for Best Short Documentary at the 2003 Netherlands Film Festival. 56 minutes. Color.
The film begins in 1967 with extremely exotic and unusual scenes of a mast (a kind of Sufi God-intoxicated person that Baba worked with), followed by a scene of Baba washing the feet of lepers. Next the filmmaker greets Baba with a bougainvillea branch and proceeds to interview him on God-realization, drugs, and cinema. The film ends with a much older Van Gasteren returning to India three decades later in a reunion with Eruch Jessawala who originally interpreted Baba's gestures. Meher Baba has long died as the now more mature men exchange words and photos. Also in the final scenes, Louis van Gasteren dons a red turban that Meher Baba had given him during their meeting in 1967 and which he had not worn for 30 years. The turban was later donated to the Meher Spiritual Center in Myrtle Beach.
As the film opens, a ninety-year-old Louis van Gasteren—a documentary filmmaker and artist famed in the Netherlands—is seated in a video editing suite, watching scenes of himself in the 1960s, a time when “anything was possible.” He reflects on how much he has changed, and that he is that same person and yet is not.