"Willem and Frieda - A Story of Resistance" (2023) by John Hay

Despite the cornucopia of various streaming sites, what really makes me happy these days is a local Dutch channel npodoc  dedicated to documentaries and every time I am not in the mood for anything commercial or violent, I simply turn to these documentaries as my preffered comfort watch. I watched almost everything about the local history here and last night I saw something really interesting, this was a story about Amsterdam in WW2 and even though I have previously heard about the 1943 bombing of the civil registry office (where all the registered identity cards were stored) I was not aware of the identity of people involved in it.

The documentary is presented by Stephen Fry who walks trough the streets of Amsterdam, tracing the footsteps of Willem Arondeus and Frieda Belinfante who were both involved in the resistance - Aroundeus was impoverished, shy artist who joined resistance from the sheer conviction (not Jew himself), while Belifante was Jewish and one of the first female conductors in Europe. Both were involved in forging of identity cards for Jews and organisation of 1943 bombing of the civil registry office (I had to look it up, where it was - nowadays its a building next to entrance to Artis Zoo). The destruction of civil registry office was important in order to stop Nazi attempts to compare forged documents with documents in registry. Arondeus was arrested, tried and executed, while Belifante went into hiding and dressed up as a man, later emigrated to United States where she continued her music carer as a conductor.

It was an excellent documentary - Stephen Fry was a perfect choice for a presenter and the story itself was hugely interesting, pointing again how dangerous was to live trough WW2 (for example, it was not enough to be a Jew, simply being gay person could result into arrest and imprisonment in concentration camp). What is specially interesting is that after the war, the names of both Arondeus and Belifante were quietly erased from the history books, even though they were both clearly heroes of the resistance - something about them being gay, did not sit well with than current atmosphere and they were not often mentioned. This has now being corrected and I am so glad that people now more about them, I specially loved 1995 TV interview with elderly Belifante who comes across as the most wonderful, warm and likeable person.

"Svjetla Pozornice" (Stage Lights) documentary 2025

Someone sent me this wonderful documentary and I watched it with the greatest pleasure. It is not often that I have opportunity to watch the latest TV programmes from my homeland, neither I was even searching for them, but this one sounded so interesting that I could not resist. "Svjetla Pozornice" ("Stage Lights") is a seven-episode documentary series chronicling the evolution of Croatian popular culture from 1950 to the present day. Each episode combines documentary footage, archival materials, and vibrant TV studio performances with interviews, offering an engaging portrayal of Croatia’s cultural history. The show is hosted by Željka Ogresta and Dubravko Merlić, who talk to expert interlocutors in the studio and present musical and dance performances related to themes from particular periods.

Since I don't live there anymore, I can only sense the feeling of uneasiness to talk, discuss or even mention the period from 1945-1991 when Croatia was still part of Yugoslavia - to my knowledge this is the very first TV programme that talks about pop culture trough these times and I must say that I was very impressed with seriousness, professionalism and objectivity both Ogresta and her husband  presented here. They weaved a very interesting story, explaining how the homegrown popular culture in Croatia changed and metamorphosed trough the decades - Film, Radio, TV, popular music, sport, etc - it was all mentioned here and I enjoyed it so much that I could watch it all over again. Naturally, I enjoyed the episodes about 1970s and 1980s the most, since this is a time period I can remember myself. The episode about 1990s was as expected somber because this was a war time, however I still need to see the very last episode that deals with a new millennium. Excellent!

Documentary: "Enigma" by Zackary Drucker (2025)

Now this was something I watched with such a pleasure that I might even re-watch it again.

It is a story about two very famous transgender people who might have started together but drifted apart later in life, living completely different lives and following their own paths. It was directed by Zackary Drucker who is transgender herself and can be seen in the movie. 

The documentary contrasts lives of April Ashley and Amanda Lear and mainly uses archival interviews and excerpts from Ashley's own memoirs as a testament of how the life back in the 1950s and 1960s was: we are talking about the times when crossdressing was punished by law (but strangely enough, allowed as a part of the stage act) so small wonder many crossdressers gravitated towards famous and notorious Paris nightclub "Le Carrousel de Paris" where many of them found employment as a glamorous performers. The part of documentary that deals with "Le Carrousel" is genuinely the highlight of the movie and I would not be surprised if the club eventually get its own documentary because its really astonishing that in conservative post-WW2 Europe such a place existed, even if French love to think of themselves as free-spirited, but according to surviving performers, it was also a very, very buttoned-up place. Jet set would arrive to be entertained by sensationally attractive boys who posed as Hollywood glamour beauties: the illusion was cemented by actual surgeries some of them got in Morocco.

April Ashley died in 2021 so the movie uses her old interviews to confirm her perspective: he was a beautiful boy who did not fit in his Liverpool surroundings and was in fact, often beaten, harassed and bullied there. No wonder he fitted perfectly in "Le Carrousel" where everybody enjoyed the camaraderie, even though there was obvious competition and jealousy - they all shared backstage life and supported each other against the prejudicial outside world. Ashley was actually fairly successful until sex operation, when she decided to start a completely new life in UK as a photo model - quickly outed by salacious tabloids and destroyed in a court after a highly publicised divorce from a Baron Corbett (who claimed he was deliberately deceived). The scandal destroyed Ashley's professional and personal life and she had never recovered from it, though much later in life when social atmosphere changed, she eventually got some moral satisfaction from being recognised as transgender equality - but this was after decades of  criticism and media assaults. 

While Ashley and her contemporaries from "Le Carrousel" all claim that there was a young pretty boy (who also painted) working with them and who eventually also did sex operation - consequently starting a new life and rejecting old contacts - Amanda Lear absolutely refuses to admit anything about it and claims her own story. Now in her eighties, Lear is a true diva, living grand life and comes across as confident, entertaining, witty and totally in control of her life. Director Zackary Drucker tries all the tricks to corral her into admitting trans past but Lear is too clever to get caught - even when pictures of "Le Carrousel" are pushed in her face, Lear won't budge and to be honest, Drucker comes across as nuisance - simultaneously flattering Lear and claiming she was the biggest trans celebrity ever, the northern light, etc but watching like a hawk for any sign of capitulation. There is a fleeting moment when we see something going on inside Lear's mind - but more I think about it, more I am prone to understand it was probably sad realisation that after a lifetime of fencing off questions about her gender, she was fooled into expecting genuinely respectful interview which turned into just another same old scandal digging expose. 

At the end, it is a curious look at two lives that had completely different path. For all her late-life awards, Ashley is a tragic life because she was constantly haunted by tabloids. Lear used her notoriety to create intriguing stage image and became successful disco star with cult following across the world - journalists might have been annoying and repetitive but she knew how to deal with them. Director Zackary Drucker might say whatever she wants ("oh, I love Lear, she was always my idol") but the movie focuses heavily on unmasking Lear and eventually it became really distasteful - at this point, Lear is retired eighty year old who deserves to live her life as she pleases, there is absolutely no need to dig & unearth anything if she is happy to live whatever life she created for herself. She does not need to apologise or explain herself to anybody. 

"Sweet Bobby: My Catfish Nightmare" by Lyttanya Shannon (2024)

 

I started actually listening to the podcast about this story - but podcast have 6 long episodes and even though I was intrigued, I got stuck on the second episode and thought, perhaps watching a full documentary all at once might be better idea. There is literary no difference between the two, except that podcast is a bit longer and more elaborate - the timeframe of a 82 minutes documentary suited me just fine.

So far, I have never heard of "catsfishing" - which probably means scamming somebody online - I have been lucky in that sense, since we live in a interesting new times where people still learn how to behave in a virtual world and have to decide for themselves whom can they trust. Yes, I did lost some money by ordering products online that were never delivered (or if they did, they wee nothing as on the pictures) but this was not a trauma, more a lesson how to behave in the future. What happened in "Sweet Bobby" was far more malicious and devious. 

The main character here is cheerful, 30-something radio presenter Kirat Assi who just ended her long term relationship and is now floating around aimlessly, feeling that her family and acquaintances expect from her to start her own family - she constantly talk about this while her voice gets more and more panicky, to the point that we are painfully aware of social expectations in Punjabi society. One day, out of the blue, she gets contacted by a handsome cardiologist from a very good and well known family who shares some friends with her - apparently everybody in Punjabi world is somehow connected - and she accepts his friendship on Facebook - with time they share close online friendship that eventually grows into a full-blown love affair, even though they never met in a real life. In fact, they did met once briefly in a nightclub, but Bobby was a bit reserved, which Kirat explained to noisy surroundings. Their online chats developed in a discussions about raising the family together, selecting babies name's, wedding dates, etc, etc - it went on for years and each time they were supposed to finally meet, Bobby would come up with another fantastic story. Most of us would give up on this imaginary "fiancé" long ago, but Kirat is all about validation from her Punjabi world and it looks as she would feel truly satisfied, fulfilled and happy only once she wears a bride dress and gets some children like all her acquaintances - she constantly talks about biological clock ticking and how she is afraid that she might miss her chance - her best chance is now this handsome stranger online (who accidentally, has a wealthy background, nice house, good job and looks like a good catch) . Of course it all eventually gets untangled towards the end and I won't spoilt the ending here - I just have to say that during the documentary, it was nobody else but Kirat herself who appeared a bit deranged, because of her intensity, gullibility and obsession with the wedding - we see photos of her as a little girl already "dressing up" as a bride, so it all gets a bit heavy, this nagging feeling of what women are expected to do to confirm their place in the society. There is a wound and emptiness here that I don't think bride's dress could ever solve. 

On the other hand, its interesting to note that "catsfishing" itself at this point is still not officially a crime. So police actually did not react when Kirat came to them with her story. Even though her life had been destroyed by malicious intent, there is still no law against it - this is where getting this story out in the public might help. 

Documentary: "The last seven months of Anne Frank" (1988)

The previous post was about two sisters who spent a year in hiding during WW2 and eventually later came to be arrested, deported and witnessed death of Anne Frank and her sister in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. Both Janny Brandes-Brilleslijper and her own sister Lien were originally in Westerbork transit camp (used as limbo between arrests and real concentration camp), than transferred to Auschwitz and finally to Bergen-Belsen where they miraculously survived, instinctively holding on to each other. One of these sisters, Janny, is included in a 1988 documentary that gives testimonies of seven different ladies who were also prisoners in these camps and who witnessed Frank family being there. 

It is a very interesting documentary since each of included witnesses tells a story that follows what happened after the end of the famous diary in 1944, when Frank family was betrayed, discovered and arrested. Some of them (like Hannah Pick-Goslar) were actually Anne's childhood friends and never knew she was in hiding - they just assumed the family was long ago escaped to Switzerland. Janny Brandes-Brilleslijper comes in a documentary around 10:38 and she talks how she met Frank family int he same train that took them to Westerbork and how they later met again in Bergen-Belsen where, exhausted and sick, Frank sisters already gave up on living anymore, thinking that their parents were already dead (Otto Frank was in fact, alive and he was already liberated from Auschwitz but nobody knew it at the time). Janny and her sister might be the last people who actually saw Frank sisters alive and they were the ones who buried them. It is a very interesting documentary that includes many other stories by Anne's friends and contemporaries. 

“Lost City” ("Verdwenen Stad") documentary by Willy Lindwer

 

I saw a very interesting documentary recently, something that I bet lot of visitors (and probably locals) are probably completely unaware of. Amsterdam was always known as place of freedom, tolerance and whatnot but from my point of view this is true only on a surface - it is and always was a cosmopolitan haven for all sorts of refugees from other places but truth to be told, foreigners are just tolerated, not really welcomed - scratch under that surface and there is a cold calculation that knows how to tax, charge and profit from the foreigners - most obvious in housing, where expats accept and pay astronomic rents just to live in the centre, while locals go elsewhere. If you talk to any local (including foreigners who live here) you would hear them bitterly complaining about "tourists" and my overall impression is that they would prefer if there is no tourism at all. I have remembered this during lockdown, when the streets were totally empty and apocalyptic & I was thinking "now you got what you always wanted, is this fun?"

“Lost City” is about Amsterdam during WW2. Than, just like now, the bureaucracy was responsible that all the wheels were turning orderly. That also means that arrested Jews were orderly waiting for the local city tram to collect them from the tram stops directly to Central Station, from where they were sent to camp Westerbork. GVB tram company (very same company that still operates today and we are all using it) was responsible for this rides and naturally everybody knew what was happening, the documentary makes no excuses about it - survivors tell their stories how their neighbours and other Amsterdammers were even gleefully watching them trough binoculars as they were standing with their belongings on the tram station, waiting to be sent somewhere (most of them expecting they will be sent to some German camps). According to the researchers, both the GVB and the tram drivers are complicit. Houwink ten Cate: "The drivers saw with their own eyes that the trams they drove were guarded by German police officers carrying guns. They therefore understood that they were transporting people against their will, who were in the power of their mortal enemies. They understood that those people went to transit camps after which you almost never heard from them again. If you add this up, you end up with collaboration." 

For a film and book about the persecution of Jews in Amsterdam, Luijters investigated the system of Jewish transports with filmmaker Willy Lindwer. The invoices turned up in the archives of the NIOD war institute. During the Second World War, 63,000 Jews were deported from Amsterdam. The Germans used trams to transport the prisoners to train stations, from where they were sent to concentration camps. The invoices contain many new details. The Germans ran a total of 900 trams. “The Municipal Transport Company sent invoices every month for all the services they provided to the occupier and therefore made money from that,” says Lindwer. "The trams were specially hired by the Germans, they were not just regular tram rides." During their research, Lindwer and Luijters came across the bill for the last tram ride on August 8, 1944. They also discovered the names of Anne Frank and her family on lists of the people who were deported from Central Station to Westerbork transit camp that same day. "They were first transferred from the former prison at Weteringschans to Central Station by tram," says Lindwer. The invoice makes it clear that the GVB tried to recover the costs until after the war. 

These old trams are still in use for a occasional Sunday ride and today completely unexpectedly I jumped into one and had a nice ride trough the city centre. 

"Love to Love You, Donna Summer" by Roger Ross Williams & Brooklyn Sudano (2023)

 

A brain child of director Roger Ross Williams and actress Brooklyn Sudano (real daughter of the singer), this was supposed to be a genuine, warts and all portrait of a famous disco queen and the stark contrast between her public and private persona. If you ever had any passing interest in Summer - and she was, frankly, unavoidable at certain point, where her double albums were selling in millions and topping the charts - you are probably aware that she was uncomfortable with her sultry image and contrary to her success, could not wait to escape disco, embrace religion and strive to some imaginary validation, which unfortunately also means antagonising the very same audience that loved her and made her a world success. These are very known facts, often covered elsewhere and millions around the world are familiar with the story - therefore, a documentary might serve as a perfunctorily introduction to a new generation who has never heard of her and who might delve deeper in her recordings, but older fans know all of this. It seems this is what documentaries nowadays do, they rehash old stories and re-package them with some new scandalous twist, to make it more interesting. Next generations will refer to this documentary as a point of reference. 

I kinda expected a storm in a teacup and this is exactly what it was. We go trough Summer's childhood, Germany, "Hair" musical, first scandalous disco hits, Giorgio Moroder, than singer's growing distaste for everything that her success represented - sexy image, hedonism, disco clubs, etc - and eventual insistence that she is not like that at all, rejection of the whole genre and its audience, vicious homophobic remarks and their denial (I don't believe the denial). Because I grew up with her music, I was very focused on this documentary but slowly it started to annoy me, I clearly saw it for what it is - an apology to her fans who supported her and were crushed when she turned openly against them. By creating a documentary where the main character is unhappy and haunted, its expected it would somehow make it easier to swallow. No, the documentary just makes her superficial and ungrateful for success she had. 

Let's start with a daughter Brooklyn Sudano who is often shown rummaging trough her mother's scrapbooks, awards and LP covers as she is some kind of Indiana Jones who has now for the very first time discovered that her mother was a superstar. She is looking at these album covers like "oh wow, I didn't know she was so famous" - please. There is also a family, as expected a typical church going Boston family who was ashamed of her chart smashing hit single "Love to love you baby" and while this obviously bothered artist herself, the family quickly learned to enjoy her wealth and success. As expected, Summer often complains that she is not a sexpot at all, than there are stories about abusive partners, attempts at suicide, how unhappy she was all that time and we got the strange feeling that she rejects the very success that she strived for - leaving a divorce and a first daughter behind, where she could focus on career, than she moans about the career. The breaking point for me came when she complained that recording company dismissed her request to hold on with release of latest Streisand duet until her own "Dim all the lights" grows to number one - eventually the Streisand duet went to nr.1 and "Dim all the lights" was only number two. It was a huge year for Summer and having two singles on top of the charts was not something to ignore, however the documentary makes it sound as it was evil and greedy recording company that stabbed her in the back and did not listen to her wishes. In reality, a petulant stance from someone who obviously lost her compass.

Documentary somehow totally ignores everything that happened after 1970s - there is a skimpy mention of her turn to Christianity, a tearful press conference where she cries that she didn't mean to criticise her fans and some home footage showing her slowly withering away from cancer. 1980s and beyond simply didn't happen, neither many unsuccessful attempts at come back. They did mention her 1983 smash "She Works Hard For The Money" but mostly as a example how far her image had cleaned up and subsequently how less interesting she became. A disco queen who actually don't like disco, rejects her gay audience and wants to be known as a serious (& religious) artist is just not so appealing as a sparkling, exciting artist she once was. I will always love her early albums because I grew up with them but this documentary just left a sour taste in my mouth. I hope that future generations will not whitewash that Summer rejected the very audience that build her up. 

"The city on strike" documentary (2021)

 Last night I did something for the very first time - I actually sat in a front of a Dutch documentary screened on a local TV and decided to give it a go with help of Dutch subtitles (I would have probably cheated but English was not available). The movie was titled "De stakende stad" ("The city on strike") and was actually premiered at the end of February, when there is annually a memorial day in remembrance of  famous 1941. February Strike. I had already walked around old Jewish neighbourhood and saw people placing flowers on a particular spot but never knew a real background behind it so this just came as a perfect introduction to a dark chapter in Amsterdam's history.

What happened is that as Germans entered The Netherlands, they immediately started with intimidation of large Jewish population - for centuries Jews were always arriving here and specifically Amsterdam was known as a safe place, where all over Europe there were fires, persecutions and pogroms. Like elsewhere, there were always locals willing to join the invaders, in this case they were known as NSB (The National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands) and they basically persecuted people much more than Germans, because they were extremely focused on showing their zealotry. They would intimidate and beat up Jewish citizens, scare the bar owners from serving Jewish customers, etc. At the very start of 1941. they marched to Waterlooplein (same place where today is a flea market and most of the tourists have no idea what happened here) to beat up Jewish people there - Jews were not waiting helplessly but were armed and helped by communists so there was a huge street fight that left Nazi collaborator Hendrik Koot dead on the ground. He was found holding a rubber hose with iron in his hand so he was obviously caught intent on beating up people but the media described him as "brutally murdered by cowardly terrorist Jews" and made it sound as he had multiple wounds. This was the main reason for two major raids in February 1941. when 427 random Jewish men of age 25-30 were arrested and brought to Jonas Daniël Meijerplein and from there deported to concentration camp. Only two of them survived the war.

It happened on a Sunday morning so lots of citizens of Amsterdam who were on the markets, saw what happened and the news quickly spread around the town. The Communist party quickly organised a full-blown protest against the treatment of their fellow Jewish friends and colleagues - on 25. February all the trams stopped and majority of companies were on strike. Even the ferries bringing workers to their works were on strike. To my knowledge it was the only full blown, open protest of citizens in the whole Europe against the treatment of Jews. The general strike in fact spread to other cities as well - Zaandam, Haarlem, Hilversum, Muiden and Utrecht - The Germans responded to this strike with brutality, arrests and even executions (9 people were killed), the city of Amsterdam was fined with 15 million guilders. 

The documentary deals with not just a strike but also a destiny of some of the men arrested and found on the photos taken by Germans on that morning. Since the men were arrested randomly, they all came from houses nearby and it was a task of the curator Wally de Lang to unearth the identity of the people who were simply taken away and gassed later as a revenge for death of Koot. There are several interviews with elderly men who were there at the time but none of them could really recognise any faces from the photographs. All the men on the photographs were looking away but there is one haunting face looking directly at the camera and all these years nobody knew his identity - in the documentary we see archivists and historians interviewing everybody but nobody knew who he was. Perhaps the hunger, stress and terror changed his face beyond the recognition or maybe he perished together with the rest of his family so nobody remembered them anymore. It was truly tragic and we were following with great interest as curators and historians searched ancient photo archive of all people who lived in Amsterdam at that time (they have tons of pictures taken for the passports and various documents) - they really looked on face upon face until finally they found him and matched the gaunt, despaired face with the handsome photo from a passport. He was leather worker Izak Lemberger who was only 19 and therefore probably the youngest person arrested in that raid - when his family arrived from Krakow, he was only 5 and he lived in a nearby Nieuwe Amstelstraat so this is how the raid worked, they basically arrested everyone in the neighbourhood, house by house. None of Izak's family survived the war. It is just heartbreaking to find the real identity of that unlucky young man who was just starting his life and to compare these two pictures. I can never walk by that square without thinking what happened here. 

"Tina" documentary by Dan Lindsay and T. J. Martin (2021)

Well, I'll be damned (to paraphrase Joan Baez) if that story is not just growing bigger and bigger like some diamond that gets different colours every time we look at it from various angles. And honestly, you would be forgiven if you think that you know everything already: after all, there has been a 1986. autobiography written with Rolling Stone journalist Kurt Loder, 1993. movie with Angela Bassett and Laurence Fishburne, not one but two musicals about her life (2012."Soul Sister" and much better known 2018. "Tina: The Tina Turner Musical"), the second part of autobiography titled "My Love Story" and number of unauthorised paperback biographies that basically repeated themselves. And its not even the first documentary about her: youtube has excellent 1992. "The Girl from Nutbush" and there are several VH1 "Behind the music" variations. But it takes a Oscar awarded team to re-tell the story again, look at it from different angle and actually make it more exciting than ever before. I am seriously bowled over how Lindsay and Martin took a well-known story and somehow managed to give it a new life. This is some serious craftsmanship here. 

Like millions around the world, I have "discovered" Turner in 1984. when she exploded with "What's love got to do with it". To this day I remember where I was and who was with me as we watched than immensely popular MTV and our reaction to the video clip. And how our teenage heads exploded as someone so confident and strong sashayed on the TV screen. She was older, bolder and sexier than anyone we knew. And in a way, looking back I can say it was quite a sensational to see an older woman re-entering pop music arena and wiping out the floor with all those other kids. Pop music than (even more now) was always more about new fresh faces - the veterans had their place but we actually never heard of someone who was 45 and at the top of the charts - it was unheard of than and frankly it would be today. 

As Turner grew bigger and bigger, it was joy to witness her enormous success as a solo artist all over the world and it seems she really accumulated a lot of good will amongst everybody, people were genuinely excited and happy for her. Naturally I soaked in all the discography, all the books, video clips, concert recordings and interviews. Along the way I have also discovered a whole cornucopia of interesting knowledge about much older, R&B scene in 1960s where she was standing next to giants like James Brown or Wilson Pickett. It was a world she left behind but for a skinny-ass white boy like me, this was super exciting. I mean, this was not some manufactured starlet, this was someone who survived "chitlin circuit"  and is now selling out football stadiums. Unbelievable. 

"Tina" is collage of several different interviews recorded during various decades: you might call it her different incarnations. Today's Tina is a mellow, little lady sitting in her elegant home on the lake in Switzerland, than there is a younger Tina recorded as talking to Kurt Loder who was preparing the book and than there are 1981. audio tape from the very first interview where she explains why she left her ex husband and her voice is still raw with pain and emotions, the wounds were still too close. On top of this, you get a smorgasbord of well documented photos and sensational live performances recorded exactly at the time when the story is happening - this might be the very first time we see a documentary celebrating her as an artist and not talking about her legs or sex appeal.

Than there is a story - its fascinating to see how media became obsessed with it and always came back to it, no matter how big or successful Tina became. The ubiquitous questions and glee about confronting her with them time and time again, makes for uneasy watching - perhaps she was naive in expecting that autobiography would explain her reasons and now it actually backfired at her. Its apparent that Oprah just won't let it go and just loves to bring it up again and again, to the point that we see Tina's obvious discomfort and distaste. Perhaps this is the best thing about documentary - to face the audience with their own glee in all of this, so they might actually understand what it does to her and how she deserves to be spared from opening old wounds. We love to think about her as powerful and strong, but they actually bring her nightmares. Her husband Erwin Bach compares it to post-traumatic stress disorder that soldiers feel years after they have returned from a war. And honestly people, her solo success by far overshadows and eclipses anything that came before. 

Eventually the documentary goes into story with much more understanding and detail than Hollywood movie (I am actually surprised how many people claim they know everything because they have seen the movie) - when Tina earlier claimed "I would have liked the movie to be closer to the truth" many just assumed she meant that it was exaggerated, where actually movie was softened and condensed - what you see here, well documented with photos, interviews and witnesses is heartbreaking and intense, raw, brutal story not just about domestic abuse but what preceded it (both of her parents left her to grandparents and just disappeared), the treatment of women in 1960s music industry, her uphill struggle to gain a footing in business that has already written her off as too old and too black, even the way she works in a music studio where a completely silly pop fluff (already recorded by Eurovision winners Bucks Fizz) is turned into a worldwide smash hit. In fact, there is so much material that you wish this could be TV series, because there is just not enough space for everything - wisely, the directors trimmed the story to its main minimum, otherwise we could have two hours just of people celebrating her. The documentary eventually finishes as celebration of Turner and her well deserved status, we even see her enjoying life in Switzerland and between the lines there is a feeling of her wanting to be left in peace now.  It was heartbreaking, it was cathartic, a genuine emotional rollercoaster and I have cried my eyes out. Will watch it again. 

p.s.

I managed to write the whole essay and not mention his name even once. Good, she deserves to be praised and celebrated for herself. 

"Tales from the Green Valley" BBC documentary (2005)

So now I am going backwards and this show was actually made before "Victorian Farm" and it was equally pleasure to watch group of historians finding their way in a 17th century farm. What is different is that initially the group was slightly bigger but producers obviously later decided that Ruth Goodman, Alex Langlands and Peter Ginn works the best as a team - Stuart Peachey and Chloe Spencer are also present here and to be honest, in my opinion each member of the group has something interesting to say. 

In this particular season we see the way farmers used to live & work in a 17th century - just like in a "Victorian Farm", everything is all about the time of the year, crops, tending the livestock and land cultivating. While Ruth and Chloe gather fruits and veggies, guys are taking care of the building the outhouse, covering the rooftops with straw, ploughing the fields with ox, etc - as expected, a lot of hard physical labour and every time they sit by the dinner they seem to be grateful to have whatever greasy intestines are served. What is interesting is that everything is recycled here - in modern times we are used to a completely different lifestyle where things are discarded and easily purchased time and time again, but in the 17th century farm one would recycle even his own urine (to use for washing and stains removal). Animal fat was made into a soap, rags were used for fire lighting, chicken bones and human waste re-cycled as fertilisers. Absolutely nothing was thrown away. There was a very interesting process of hedge laying which was artificial fence between the fields but built from living parts of the bushes and branches in a way that they would continue to live and grown - one of those completely forgotten professions that used to exist centuries ago. And naturally, they ate in a seasons, so all the fresh fruit and vegetables were consumed in the right time of the year, unless something like Pears were collected and stored in the attic for later. There is a certain voyeurism about the whole thing - after all, we are comfortable in a nice apartments with central heating while the guys are building the pig house with bare hands - but it was very, very interesting. I have actually binged on this.

"Victorian Farm" BBC (2009)

Lo and behold, I have stumbled upon this documentary on youtube and it has completely captivated me, proving again that I can really do without any paying web sites with their streaming movies & programs - good ol' youtube is still a cornucopia of goodies that one just needs to discover. 

One way or the other, I found "Victorian Farm" and this is something completely up my alley - a historical program about daily life of ordinary people. Not just kings, queens and their battles but what actual people ate, how did they sleep and lived centuries ago. This particular program is in fact second part of BBC historical farm series where a group of historians and archaeologists play the parts of ordinary people on a farms in a British countryside, using only and exclusively gadgets, utensils and clothes available at that particular times. So no telephones, lighters, gloves, tennis shoes, sun lotion, sport jackets or anything that was not in the picture at that time. It is not really important, but the program was created this way:

"Tales from the Green Valley" (2005)

"Victorian Farm" (2009)

"Edwardian Farm" (2011)

"Wartime Farm" (2012)

"Tudor Monastery Farm" (2013)

 

Since each program is completely self-contained, it is not really important to watch them in any particular order, in fact I have devoured "Victorian Farm" and than found out about other series. As the title says, Victorian Farm is set in 19th century and joyful trio of Alex Langlands, Peter Ginn and Ruth Goodman are dropped in a miraculously preserved (but still completely neglected) Victorian farm in Shropshire, situated on a land owned by The Acton family who are around since the the twelfth century - Actons just come for a occasional visit to check how the things are going and to show the guys how to use certain Victorian machines but for the most part Alex, Peter and Ruth are left on their own. Dear reader, this was completely and utterly fascinating: they had to often look into old books popular amongst people back than, like "The Book of the Farm" and such, with detailed instruction how and what to do in certain situations. Both guys are super handy (and persistent) with all this hard physical work, while Ruth is just unbelievably skilful indoors and knows hundreds of little household tricks useful in the kitchen, etc. I mean, today we made our lives easier with all sorts of appliances, buttons and electricity but these people had no electricity whatsoever and their whole day was one of hard work. For example, when Ruth was doing the laundry, this was going on for several days - today the housewives just push the button. Also what was fascinating was that their whole existence was focused on food, livestock and seasons of the year - one had to wake up early, take a good care of the animals (first build a warm place for them, using materials available in the forrest and in the fields), make sure they are healthy and well fed and than hope that for the rest of the year everything will go as planned. There are lots of forgotten skills that local people are willing to show, like basket weaving, cheese making, etc, etc - I have binged on the whole series with a glee and now already started "Tales from the Green Valley".