Nederlands.
English translation below ↓.
“Mexico is mijn favoriete plek op aarde! Nadat ik de film Frida (2002) zag, nam mijn vriendje me mee naar Mexico-Stad. Daar staat nog altijd het ‘Casa Azul’ oftewel het blauwe huis, de woning van Diego Rivera waar Frida Kahlo met hem woonde. Het was mijn droom om dat te zien.”
“Toen we daar naar binnen stapten… Oh mijn God, ik kan het niet uitleggen. Het was fantastisch. Je kunt haar aanwezigheid daar gewoon voelen. Ik huilde als een klein kind. Ik was toen al compleet in de ban van haar. Als je boeken over haar leest en haar schilderijen bekijkt, probeer je je al in te beelden hoe haar leven eruit zag. Maar het mooie van film is dat het echt tot leven komt. Frida is zo mooi gemaakt en Selma Hayek is de perfecte keuze voor de hoofdrol. Ze lijkt zelfs op Kahlo. Ze heeft dezelfde vibe, dezelfde bewegingen.”
“Ik heb de film minstens 45 keer gezien, kan alle dialogen meepraten. Ik weet het: het is wat overdreven. Al mijn vrienden lachen erom. Er was een periode dat ik de film elke drie of vier dagen keek; telkens als ik verdrietig was of stress had, zette ik Frida aan en voelde ik me meteen beter. Ik denk omdat haar leven zó ingewikkeld was, dat alles wat ik zelf doormaakte in vergelijking daarmee klein en overkomelijk voelde. Ik bedoel: ze verloor haar been, haar man ging iets van duizend keer vreemd en ze draaide de gevangenis is.”
“Na dat alles moest ik daar gewoon heen. Het was geweldig om dat huis dat ik in de film ontdekte, ook in het echt te zien.”
Foto en tekst door Feargal Agard.
English
“Mexico is my favorite place in the world! After I watched the movie Frida (2002) my boyfriend brought me to Mexico City where you still have Diego Rivera’s house, Casa Azul (Blue House), where Frida Kahlo used to live. It was my dream to see it. You go inside and “Oh my god”, I cannot explain it. It is fantastic. You can just feel her. I cried like a baby when I went inside. I was already very passionate about her. Obviously when you read books, you see the paintings, you try to picture what her life was like, but the best thing about movies is that you watch a film and everything comes to life. It was so well done and Salma Hayek was the perfect choice. She even looks like her. She has got the same vibe and the same moves.”
“I watched the movie about 45 times or maybe more. I know all the sentences by heart. So whenever I watch the movie I just repeat what they say. I know. It is sick. All my friends are laughing about it. I used to watch it every 3 or 4 days. Every time I was feeling sad or stressed I just put the movie on and I feel so much better about everything. Probably because her life was so complicated that everything I went through looks like a very small thing that I can overcome. I mean they cut her leg, her husband was cheating on her like a thousand times and she has been to prison. She is an amazing woman. So after that I just had to go and after a month I went. It is amazing. You saw it in the movie and now you see it in reality.”
“What I have in common with her? The way she loves unconditionally. Love for her man, love for her country, love for her family. Like, she did not care if she got hurt, as long as she is with her man. It is a wonderful thing. I don’t think anyone can do that. People always want something back from their relationship and for what I understood she did not want anything back. She just wanted to love her husband. Plus, I love her country. I am Italian, but my heart is not in Italy. The love that I feel for London, it is like I was born there. I can feel it in my blood. She had the same passion for her country. To me it is like London becomes a person. I always say that London is the love of my life. I call London ‘she’. She is never going away. She is never going to cheat. London is the love of my life.”
Photo and story by Feargal Agard.
For the original post click here.
De Filmkrant!
In August 2017 a prominent Dutch film newspaper named “De Filmkrant” offered to collaborate with my Humans of Film Amsterdam photo-storyblog. Since September 2017, Dutch readers have been able to read a new story every month in my column on the 5th page of this film newspaper.
You can find the 8th story in De Filmkrant newspaper in almost every movie theatre in the Netherlands, but also online as a pdf.
Check out the 5th page!: http://www.filmkrant.nl/files/2018/Filmkrant411.pdf
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