Back in the day when I actually used to live here initially, one of my favourite spots in town was Filmmuseum in Vondelpark - they would screen classic movies and retrospectives of famous directors/movie stars and the whole experience was beautiful because it was usually combined with a walk trough beautiful park right in the centre of the city + small screen halls welcomed the audience that was genuinely interested in such movies. In 2012 the place eventually moved elsewhere and I had huge problem with changing my habit, since new location was in completely different part of town. I understand they needed bigger place for their archives and wanted to expand their audience but personally I just couldn't make myself travelling with a ferry across the water into new modern building that was highly praised but to me it lacked the charm of the old pavilion. Last night, however, I did made an effort because of this new documentary that I really wanted to see. My friends and me were all unfamiliar with the place so it was fun to discover it together for the fist time - the ferry crossing was easy peasy (and free), the journey lasted perhaps only 5 minutes from Central Station, it wasn't really as bad as I believed all these years.
"Maria by Callas" is obviously a labour of love by director Tom Volf and it has found surprisingly faithful and loving audience here, but this is what I expected from the city that always had affection for culture. It has been showing around town for quite some time and still the cinemas are full, which is wonderful considering this is a documentary and not some big blockbuster. It combines old clips of Callas performances with interviews, news clips and her own letters so it gives a close look at who this legendary woman might have been in a real life. In the post WW2 world she was a phenomenon and media often exaggerated her image as impossible, temperamental diva who cancel performances on the whim but the documentary points that she was highly praised professional who simply refused to be treated like a circus attraction and refused to be pushed around. In fact, for all her alleged prima donna behaviour it seems she was actually very patient and controlled until stress gets her lashing out, which is perfectly understandable for anybody in such position - she was expected to focus on performances and give her best in situation which were not arranged and her fury was not at the colleagues but at the management that provided no adequate rehearsals (often she would not even seen costumes or scenery before actually stepping on a stage).
The movie kind of depicts her story as tragic but I disagree.
Every body's life can be described as tragic one if we focus only on sad things - Callas had huge happiness in a life filled with music, she loved her work and it gave her adoration by millions around the world. Her work was admired, what she offered was spectacularly praised and she will be forever known as the ultimate opera singer of her generation. True, she sacrificed family life for the professional one but it seems she accepted it with grace, besides this is what many other artists also did, she was not the only one. The much-publicised affair with Onassis is a complex issue but than again, instead of making martyr out of her, we must remember they were the perfect match (as most famous Greeks in the world back than) and Callas experienced passion and love that many other people never experience.
The most startling fact for me was that so many lives end suddenly without a warning - Callas herself died from heart attack at the age of 53 and still in one of her last interviews she was full of hopes, dreams and plans, she even talked how she still waits for the perfect man who will take care of her. There were also some funny moments when one can't help but notice how genuinely theatrical lady she was, very much poised and mannered all the time - than again we are talking about 1950s when women were expected to behave that way. In one funny scene, she is filmed on the set of movie "Medea" and she quickly licks her glasses in a very unexpected, genuinely human moment - scenes like these show her not as a mythical diva but as a sweet, warm person.
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