The other night I was watching Frida on Starz. I’ve watched it before, but not lately– not since I started writing this blog, but I think something about being high on two margaritas (two REALLY BIG margaritas) took it up another level, left me in a swirl of emotions, desires and deep thoughts.
In the first post I wrote on this blog, …She Would Be Creative, I talked how I enjoy being around creative people, and creative women in particular. “The Universe is creation. Life is creation. The amazing thing about humankind is our ability to look at the world around us and affect change.”
There’s an energy that flows between creative minds that creates this awesome feedback loop, and as I watched the two artists Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera begin their love affair, I couldn’t help but be captivated imagining how amazing it must have been to add physical and emotional passion to their creative connection.
There’s the scene where they are about to get intimate, and Frida expresses some hesitancy due to her disfigurement from the bus & trolly collision that badly injured her.
Frida: I have a scar.
Diego: Let me see it… (after seeing the scar) You’re perfect. Perfect.
That scene carried me back to the guest spot I wrote for Simply Solo, The Spice of Life, writing about firsts. “The first time you learn that something you find adorable in your lady – her nose, her lips, her ears, or her fingers – is something she’s self-conscious about.” So often things that your lover views as flaws are things that you find precious. The scars don’t make Frida ugly, the scars are just another part of the woman he loves.
Visually the scene very much evokes to me the feelings I had while writing …She’d Have Curves (pt 2), as Diego’s hands trace Frida’s hips.
Later on in the movie (and well into my second margarita) Leon Trotsky comes to stay with Frida and Diego. Trotsky has been exiled from Soviet Russia by Stalin and is a hunted man, and as played by Geoffrey Rush he exudes energy and a force that makes perfect sense of Frida’s attraction to him, despite his being 30 years her senior.
It got me thinking that the energy that drives revolutionaries can be very similar to the energy that drives artists– both are creative endeavors, trying to release into the world something new and better. The people in the movie discussed politics with as much passion as they did art. I could see modern day parallels. I don’t imagine it’s an coincidence that so many in the arts and in Hollywood tend to sympathize with the political left — “progressives” — in this country. There’s an inherent optimism in creation, whether in art, in politics, or in making a child to bring into this world. Falling in love is the ultimate expression of optimism, right?
What really got to me most I suppose at the end of Frida and all the thoughts and emotions swirling through me is how writing this blog seems to have changed the way I look at things– movies, TV, people I meet, daily life. The written word is not as visceral or stimulative to the senses as other art forms, but I’ve read plenty that has moved me deeply. Apparently the act of writing itself can change your own perspective! Have you ever written something or a series of things that seemed to have changed how you thought or looked at the world?
My Ideal Woman... 