The Eurovision Song Contest 2021 - nr.2

I got prepared for Semi final nr.2 much better and listened all the songs on Spotify to make sure I am familiar with them. As a result, I already had some idea who could be my favourites and for which songs I didn't care much - this was a little bit tricky because some of them actually sound better in real live performance and vice versa. I got so deeply involved in this listening during my walk that I forgot to turn the right corner on my way home and ended up in a completely different part of town, literary lost in music. 

The Second evening was much better, or I just got more excited. As opening act, there was a spectacular dancing performance by break dancer Redo who was so brilliant that I wouldn't even notice he was handicapped if friends didn't point at it - the guy was actually genuinely brilliant.

Than, of course, contestants started performing and strutting their stuff. I think this was just sensational, what fun to watch them all dressed up in costumes, trying their best to leave some mark in three minutes, watched by millions around the world. Contrary to my friends I didn't care for thumping dance anthems like "Adrenalina" (San Marino) even though they have special cameo by some famous DJ and it meant nothing to me. But its fine because we were all in good spirits and voting on our papers anyway. Estonia was fine, but it left no particular impression - maybe it one of those songs that slowly grows on you with time. Czech representative had absolutely nothing with Czech Republic, being half-black South African with a bleached blond hair - whatever - his song was silly, thumping pop fluff that I initially disliked but somehow later found better in live performance - its actually perfectly fine for jogging, for example. The Greek girl was beautiful but could not either sing nor dance, so WTF was she doing here. On the other hand, I love bombastic Austrian ballad "Amen" (that naturally had absolutely nothing to do with Austria, was sung by Asian man in English). For some reason my friends had high expectations for Poland, but I had not. Natalia Gordienko (Moldova) was another Kylie Mynogie clone and she was very effective as such - less vocally impressive in live performance than in a studio recording - although why would she continue and exactly same Croatian blonde not, I can't say. 

My favourite Iceland was wonderfully goofy and I cheered for them. For me they are absolute favourites but I still must admit that The Black Mamba (Portugal) had a better overall song. What to say about the next several women from Balkan - both Albania and Serbia had representatives apparently looking as what they find very attractive back home. It is a particular idea of a very aggressive femininity that for some reason Eastern Europeans like, but I find it such a cliché that its almost laughable. Its always big hair, décolletage, heavy make up and wind machines all over the place - simultaneously playing on their sex appeal for all what is worth but in a songs claiming they are actually not like that. To me it all looks and sounds like Shakira all over again, therefore nothing new. 

On the other hand, I was intrigued with contestant from Georgia. There was something about this guy (Tornike Kipiani) who was already selected for Eurovision 2020 - that made me feel protective about him - he was obviously completely out of his element in this circus with his sensitive, simplistic ballad and naturally he won no votes from anybody, but I kind of feel bad for him. I mean, with all these Balkan Amazons shaking all they got and other contestants being so attention grabbing, poor Kipiani just had no chance. Bulgarian representative clearly followed Billie Eilish and to me this is extremely annoying navel-gazing so I was a bit upset that she even qualified to go on in finale, but apparently young audience likes this kind of "poor me" stuff. The guys from Finland were anti-establishment rockers with aggressive sound and flipping a middle finger all the time, OK, we are so cool, look at us, we don't care for Eurovision. Like no one has ever done that before. Audience wild.

Towards the end, I was getting a bit tired. This is where Latvia had bad luck to perform when most of the audience was probably exhausted with so much ass wiggling and wind machines - there was nothing specifically wrong with neither the wailing blonde singer nor with her backing trio, but hearing for the hundred times lyrics like "I am woman, I am ruler" made me suddenly look for the snacks and drinks. 

There is just so much domination I can take for one evening. A singer representing Switzerland was some very interesting young person with a magnificent, angelic voice - apparently Albanian background  - it was very unusual, soaring ballad sung in French (thanks God, finally!) and he was genuinely great. 

The last contestants were two colourful guys from Denmark who had completely reconstructed the sound, the look and the stage moves from 1980s so that was cute but naturally déjà vu for me, as I remember 1980s still very well.

Ten of these performers have passed the test and will perform tomorrow in a big finale.

I do must mention the interval act which had some spectacular dancing by classical ballet dancer, Ahmad Joudeh, and BMX rider Dez Maarsen. That was really, very, very good. 

The Eurovision Song Contest 2021

Yay, its back! 

2020 was the only year in the 65 years of Eurovision that the festival did not happen - everything was ready, contestants and songs were selected but it was not time for celebration, entertainment and definitely not for the large crowds. Apparently they did something online instead but it wasn't the real thing and I did not follow. This time, the spectacle returned live as it should be, in front of the extremely enthusiastic crowd in Rotterdam (since the last winner was from the Netherlands) and I almost felt a trace of sadness for not being there because it was probably one-in-a-lifetime chance to be so close to the real Eurovision - in the normal circumstances I would have gone there, but that was int he pre-Corona days. I wouldn't mind taking a train and travelling to Rotterdam with friends. Right now I am not even able to go to ordinary cinema, not to mention something so crowded as Eurovision.

True, I had some difficulties in switching from Claude Debussy as performed by Daniel Barenboim ("La Mer") to this newest pop fluff and initially I was slightly annoyed with myself for not being prepared and checking out all the contestants previously - they are all available online - but as usual, I dived in it wholeheartedly and watched everything to the very end. This was just the first part - there are zillion contestants so the only way to arrange Eurovision these days is to divide it in two semi finals and than grand finale, so whoever survived this first evening has the right to compete in finale.

Here I must say that watching Eurovision is not just watching anymore - it has ceased to be many years ago, when families would sit comfortably in front of TV and hear songs for the first time. Ever since the music became available online, we are able to check it out first and get familiar with songs, not to mention that if you are in a company (or in a bar) it became a communal fun with voting for the best choreography, costumes, hair, etc. So the way it works for me is to listen the contestants a bit before the competition itself and than on the big evening I know what I am hearing - the live spectacle can only enhance the music. 

Last night, while I was watching Eurovision (with Debussy still in my ears) I didn't care for any of this at all - but today, while I arranged a Spotify playlist with all of them - I am listening it all over again and its a genuinely fun, uplifting and mostly cheerful music, something quite perfect for the car drive or a walk.

Obviously it was made with radio play in mind - it works in itself even without all the fuss, choreography or lasers - it is a perfect radio fodder and this is exactly what it is. Naturally, some contestants have lost and fallen sideways - it created usual stir online and avalanche of complains that its all about politics, but hey, sometimes this is just the way the dice rolls. Its like people take this entertainment TV show too seriously and complain about it not being high art - no, it never was. It was always a spectacle and now more than ever resembles a gladiators arena.

Most of what I have seen last night in the first semi finale was a lot of ass-wiggling, carefully arranged choreography and computer animation bursting during the (supposedly) big refrain. In other words, all of this might appear very exciting to the young audience who thinks that adding a big gospel chorus means something special, but some of us heard it before, just not as bombastic as today. There was a lot of focus on messages, love-yourself and everyone-is-beautiful kind of lyrics which I find tiresome for a pop songs. So I was looking for something different, something that was standing out from the crowd - that was not any of the ass-wiggling beauties (including Croatia whom I thought will be a winner and she did not even pass the first semi finale, so much about my understanding of what might work) but haunting combination of folk and rave by curiously left-field, artsy Ukraine or dark, elegant and haunting Belgian entry that was a welcome change from so much ass wiggling - this was probably the best song of the evening but so far, the lot of attention is focused on Malta who just happened to push all the right buttons of the moment - interestingly I think this has nothing to do with the music but with the atmosphere of the times. Its kind of "It's Raining Men" all over again but the kids think its something new. 

 

(To be continued) 

"A Život Teče Dalje ..." by Đorđe Marjanović (1975)

 

Probably the all-time biggest Serbian pop pioneer Đorđe Marjanović just died from Corona virus at the age of 89. It is fair to say that at the time of his death he was already a little forgotten, considering that his peak of popularity happened back in the 1960s. Marjanović was the first post-WW2 pop star in Ex Yu and apparently he was important because he broke with tradition of standing like a statue in front of the microphone - whatever he lacked as a vocalist (he was really, just average singer) he substituted with showmanship and was enormously popular in his time. When in the 1960s Yugoslavia started sending music artists on the tours in Soviet Union, Marjanović left a huge impression on Russian audiences and indeed he was a genuine superstar of the first order there. 

The reader must forgive me if I thought that Marjanović had already died - he really belongs to some other time and important as he was, he is always mentioned in the context of birth of pop music in Ex Yu. His first LP album was also a very first album released by than-young recording company PGP RTB and the adulation and frenzy on his 1960s concerts matches later Beatlemania. Tried as I might, I have never warmed to Marjanović as a singer - here I belong to the group that criticised him at the start as not a particularly gifted or individual vocalist - there was apparently a big public discussion about it and two opposite opinions polarised the public. Although I understand he was a showman, I have always find his voice far less interesting than some of his contemporaries and the stories about how he rolled on the floor, would fall on his knees and throwing the jacket in the audience make me shiver with embarrassment - clearly, he knew how to work the audience but this does not appeal to me.

"A Život Teče Dalje ..." was late in the game LP album released curiously not by PGP RTB but by Zagreb-based Jugoton. Like so many artists of his generation, Marjanović was used to sing international covers so the majority of the material here were already hits for other people - the overall effect is of someone covering anything on the current pop chart, without giving much thought to logic or reason. It might have worked well on Soviet Union tours where he would introduce international hits to audience starving for all things foreign but since I never cared much for him as a singer, I would rather go for originals. Amongst other, here are covers by Hot Chocolate, Bryan Ferry (covering Bob Dylan), Demis Roussos, Mino Reitano, Nicola Di Bari. Here I do must mention that I had occasionally met middle aged Russians who would ask me where I am from and than starry-eyed proclaimed their everlasting love for Đorđe Marjanović, so obviously he had left a big impression on them.

Old Amsterdam 1910.

 

I just found a very interesting photo of the Amsterdam's main square (Dam) in 1910 - these old photos are so far the closest we have to time machine - it is really interesting to notice how in many ways the place is still recognisable but than again, completely different. This is where the city of Amsterdam officially began, as the bridge connected two opposite roads situated on a river - on this photo river Amstel was already covered and the streetcar was running here. In the old times, there were obviously some farms and fishermen around, than trough the century there was enough wealth, political and religious importance to turn this into a glorious city.

The main outline of the old city is still very much present - several canals that follow the shape of the horseshoe are still there, its just that lot of construction, re-construction, elimination and replacement took place. For example, looking at this picture, Dam square is of course still here but it looks completely different today - the monument of "Nation" (bastardised into "Natje" that would make her affectionately called something like "Nelly") is long gone, the majority of the buildings are not on this spot anymore, the road naturally leads towards Central Station but empty corner on the right is where elegant and legendary department store De Bijenkorf came much later. The interesting building with the church tower int he distance is actually a stock exchange building that used to be one of the most important spots in town but is completely eclipsed by department store ever since. 

Maybe even more fascinating is the photo taken a little earlier from a different perspective - the second photo covers the right side of Dam square and it shows the houses that were standing on the spot where Bijenkorf was later built. There is almost nothing left from this picture, except the beginning of the street that today we recognise as Warmoestraat, but the houses are not here anymore. They are all replaced with modern buildings or hotels. The strangest of all is the impressive building right in the middle of the square that no one remembers anymore but it used to be called Commandantshuis. If somebody drop me off in this spot at the time when these photos were made, I would understand where I was but would feel a strange unsettling sensation like everything is in a wrong place.

Long walks and discoveries: Kadijkenplein

Most of the visitors attention here is mainly focused on Amsterdam's central part called Red Light District - while this might be understandable, it is neither pretty nor inspirational but rather a nasty, sleazy part of old town where cheap, gimmicky shop windows fight for naive customers to buy sex toys, aphrodisiacs, T-shirts and plastic souvenirs made elsewhere. If this is what you came for, good for you, but there is so much more to this beautiful city. I was stuck in this area since I lived here for a while, but eventually my natural curiosity inspired me to see what is over there so I moved to the left - still historical part, just far less visitors and not commercial at all - first I discovered the old Jewish neighbourhood, than I moved further left to Kadijken.

Kadijken is the area just across the famous Het Scheepvaartmuseum - originally it was a shipyard area and even today there are houses here built for the seamen, like Zeemanshuis (The Seamen's House)

or on the opposite side there is a beautiful building in the style of Central Station and eventually I found out it used to be The Nautical School - also, because there used to be all sorts of gates around, people who worked around them lived here. So this was all about seamen, shipyards, gates, naval academies, warehouses and the smell of fish everywhere. The part that particularly delights me is called Kadijksplein and it is a charming square right opposite of Het Scheepvaartmuseum.

Because of Corona, the place is deserted, of course, but my impression is that this was never  crowded place anyway - it really looks as one of those forgotten corners known only to locals who live here. After all, the tourists usually crowd elsewhere and Kadijken seems genuinely as a perfect biking or walking route, very quiet, very serene and just a little bit out of center. There are several extremely charming bistros and terraces here, along with a super attractive bakery and some art shops, but the best of all is the sight of my favourite house in Amsterdam. 

I don't know how to explain it or put it in the words but my heart beat faster when I saw this little beauty. There are two cutest little houses leaning on each other and mine is the one of the left. Apparently they are here for quite some time and the old photos show the both little houses being some sorts of local shops (Tobacco?) - it was always a very pleasant little neighbourhood and these two sister houses are just the cutest little sights for me - I always smile when I see the house on the left, number 15. Apparently not so long ago, both of them were seriously neglected and it is heartbreaking to see how bad they looked - whoever lived there, just didn't give a damn or did not appreciate what a fantastic place this is. Fortunately, both houses got extremely nice makeover and new owners, so now when I walk here, I see young families with small kids playing outside and it just feels so right to see the little house bursting with a new life, it always makes me happy - it doesn't matter that myself I don't live there, in fact this new young family with kids belongs there perfectly, its almost like some Disney movie, the beautiful little house with a young family inside. I do have a soft spot for little houses and they always catch my attention as I enjoy my walks, this little beauty definitely warms my heart. 

"Black Diamond Queens: African American Women and Rock and Roll" by Maureen Mahon (2020)

This was by far one of the best books dealing with female African American musicians - not only it discussed their sound, influence and importance analytically and seriously, but it places them in a socio-cultural perspective, explains why they mattered, how come they were for such a long time mostly ignored in Rock histories (or relegated into the background) and it also references a tons of interesting literature for future reading.

As we all know, Rock music (or any other music genre, come to think of it) came as a hybrid of many various ingredients and the earliest influences - now reverently mentioned in rock and Roll Hall of fame - were African American musicians. While the guys were eventually grudgingly accepted as Rock architects, women were not so lucky - Mahon points why this came to be and how the image of rock music as predominantly white macho world of the guys with the guitars somehow became dominant idea - girls who were not writing their own material or playing instruments but "only singing" were perceived as not quintessential. And this went on forever, to some degree even today.

 

There is a lot of interesting thoughts and ideas around this book, some of them being  the difficulty women have gaining inclusion in the rock canon and how "white British singers borrowed African American women’s phrasing, inflection, and vocal mannerisms, using these features to develop the individual styles that came to be associated with them throughout their careers". By idolising Tina & The Ikettes, lots of white Rock guys started using backing vocal trios that eventually became a norm in Rock music - however important, this role was always in the background and perceived as ornamentation. For various reason, Afro-American women had hard time breaking into Rock music, not only because music critics constantly insisted their place should be in R&B, Soul or Funk, but also because apparently Afro-Americans themselves saw it that way - girls who dared to venture into Rock music were rare anomaly and perceived as indecent. 

I thought it was very interesting, specially when it discussed less known artists like Marsha Hunt whom I never heard of before. Perhaps the only disappointment is the final chapter, on which i carefully waited and which should have been culmination - when she approach the case of the only Afro-American woman who have actually established herself in a world of Rock music, Mahon twists herself into a pretzel trying to explain Tina Turner's success by careful strategy, this or that - no, she became Queen of Rock because she had a unique, unmatched combination of sound, looks and passion that always set her apart. It seems that Mahon has a problem simply accepting that. 

1953. Amsterdam boys read a newspaper at the canal

 

"Neosedlani" by Dado Topić (1979)

Of all the vocalists who started in rock bands in the late 1960s/early 1970s (Dalibor Brun, Zlatko Pejaković, Zdravko Čolić) the only one who later rejected commercial route and stayed firmly close to his youthful ideals is Dado Topić. It is very interesting how all of them dealt with the business differently - they are without exception gifted performers who could go either way - but where Brun & co. answered the call of Mammon, Topić stuck to his guns and never metamorphosed into middle-aged "schlager" entertainer - this strategy ultimately cost him media visibility and he was forever destined to wither somewhere in the background, almost like mythical Unicorn, more legend than current music presence but on the other hand, where audiences completely forgot the explosive starts of his contemporaries, music by this guy is still genuinely great. 

For the majority of 1970s Topić was vocalist of very interesting band "Time" so it took him longer than others to release solo album - when it came, it was quite something. Completely self-written, "Neosedlani" ("Unsaddled") is a concept album that follows a story about self-discovery and the music is excellent, kind of what Stevie Wonder did trough 1970s - personally I think that lyrics are clumsy and could have been better but as always, Topić follows his own star and had obviously poured his heart into these songs. It is (autobiographical?) a story about a young, ballsy punk who goes into the world with big dreams and learns a lesson that money comes & goes - defeated but wiser, he returns home.

While the music is thoroughly very enjoyable (specially "Milion Dolara" where he is joined by Slađana Milošević), the lyrics are perhaps too personal to resonate with wider audience - unless the listeners are the types who think that home is always the best place to be and any kind of adventurism is pointless. Interestingly enough, the lyrics are actually more interesting when Topić moves away from me-format and describes other characters, like in vignettes "Radmila" or "Jovane" that are genuinely funny and moving, but about other people. Apart from earnest lyrics, it is a surprisingly strong double LP album and I must admit that I like it more with each listening - musicianship is excellent thoroughly, there are many brilliant moments and surprises, the singer's heart is in the right place. Naive and provincial as the protagonist might be, we understand him on some visceral, intuitive level - he could be a wayward, vagabond brother who just need a helping hand. Excellent album. 

Amsterdam around 1890.

 

"Nomadland" by Chloé Zhao (2020)

I am so glad to start the month of May with something genuinely great, it is the latest "Oscar" winning movie with a big fuss made about being the first award given to Asian female director - but honestly, I was really enjoying the movie for its story, depth, insight and the thoughtfulness - while the questions of director's gender and race might be interesting to some, it is the movie itself that moved me and got my attention, this whole media attention kind of misses the point if this is all they will talk about. 

The story follows middle aged Fern (excellent Frances McDormand) who struggles to survive as a nomadic temporary worker here and there, while living in her van. Along the way she meets others who are (for various reasons) in the same situation and who help her with practical advices about this nomadic lifestyle and how to move South when the weather turns cold. It is quite grim, stark contrast from the idealistic picture of America that we got used to - this America is not a promised land but a bare, unfriendly and cold wasteland where elderly, lonely and forgotten people bond over the bonfire in a desert, singing together, talking, laughing and sharing their grief. Without going too much into detail, I can say that Fern is sort of Odyssey looking for her home - trough the movie we discover more about her background, but its all done very cleverly in layers that slowly peel one by one - finally its not even about one particular thing but as her sister (Melissa Smith) says, she was always a brave outsider yearning to be elsewhere. 

The movie is incredibly slow-burning beauty and it demands your whole attention - no big car crashes or explosions here, this is all about understanding how heroically and stoically Fern copes with everything that life throws at her. When warned that she can't park on this particular spot overnight, she simply goes away. When her prized ceramic plates crash, she glues them. No matter what kind of job is available, she will do it. Sometimes its numbing (like in Amazon packing plant), sometimes pleasant (in a sunny car camp). And just like mythical Odyssey, she meets all sorts of people - who are thankfully, mostly friendly and lost just as she is - there is even a young man into whom she bumps accidentally twice and recites him some Shakespeare - it is heartbreaking to understand that she is stronger of the two and he might be on the downslope. 

I thought it was brilliant - very interesting, thought-provoking, makes you think not about movie itself but about bigger picture, like life, our place in it, the people that we meet, the bonds we made, what is really important, our connection to material possessions, etc. A friend was commenting how much we are attached to our material possessions and right in the middle of the movie we had to stop and discuss this, because I disagreed - Fern is a perfect example - there is absolutely nothing that I could not live without - all my material possessions are just that, material things and they can all disappear in an earthquake or whatever - what matters is what I keep in my heart and my mind (and even that is not guaranteed to stay intact), really we are like a leaf in the wind and all that matters is how we touched people along the way and did we help somebody. Every single person in this movie carries his or hers own cross, what they do is help each other to ease it just a little bit. 

Jadranka Stojaković & Đorđe Balašević

 

Addio, Milva

Sad news - Italian singer Milva have died this weekend and with her gone, this is now a twilight of the Gods. Some time ago I wrote about her being - along with Mina and Ornella Vanoni - one of the three main female cornerstones of Italian pop music. All three completely different, respectful to each other and incredibly successful in their own right. Inevitably, listener is moved to compare them but they are genuinely excellent artists worth listening and had carved their own signature.

All three had to go trough typical Italian showbiz route - big festivals, San Remo, TV entertainment shows - before they established themselves and became brands. If Ornella was a tender crooner and Mina a weary, sophisticated lady, Milva was a theatrical red haired volcano, gifted with a spectacularly resonant voice - judged by the merit of the voice only, she might technically be the best singer of all three. Hers was a voice that happens once in a century, a deep contralto that has nothing to do with American rock music and everything with old Bel Canto school of singing (I am sure she must have been trained as a singer) and this might be one the reasons why at certain point in 1970s she became restless and started exploring other music directions - theatre, Bertold Brecht, Tango, Ennio Morricone, etc - before moving on to German and French market. Eventually, Germany, France and Italy all honoured her with national awards - I am talking about knighthoods and Order of Merit. 

Hers is a delightfully eclectic discography that goes all over the map - as expected, 1960s were all about big, Italian ballads and bombastic San Remo numbers but later she gets really interesting and there is a certain willingness to experiment and artistic curiosity that is almost unique amongst big stars who tend to set in their own ways. The sheer amount of the records means that I am always stuck somewhere in the 1960s but actually the older she got, her repertoire got better and more varied. Although she stayed a big concert attraction for the long time, it seems that recording-wise she fell out of fashion at certain point (the destiny of many music veterans) and I remember that browsing trough Italian music shops, I could hardly find her albums - which is strange, considering how big and important she once was. Right now Italian media is praising her to the skies but I feel its a bit too late, she was fairly forgotten in the recent years. Curiously, one of the last pictures published on her Facebook page was the one where lady gets her vaccine, with a message "I get vaccinated because I care about my life and other people's lives. Do it too. We need to get back to life before, and hug our loved ones. Together we can all manage to defeat this virus."  Sadly, she passed soon afterwards but left a beautiful afterglow behind her. I will always love her. 

"The Haunting of Alma Fielding" by Kate Summerscale (2020)

I complained about Kate Summerscale's previous book ("The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher") but at the end read it twice and even bought one copy as a gift. She has a meandering way with storytelling but her subjects are fascinating so I will continue to go on with her work, even though sometimes I wish she go on with the story instead of trying to explain the social contest and background of each character mentioned along the way.

"The Haunting of Alma Fielding" is another true-life story that happened in the twilight of 1930s, just as WW2 was becoming a serious threat. Some kind of panic and fear is already in the air, no wonder that so many people were intrigued with spiritualism, seances and ghosts. It might as well be reaction on uneasiness and atmosphere filled with danger. Hungarian emigrant Nandor Fodor works at the International Institute for Psychical Research but so far he had not find any genuine medium - he was successful at unmasking the fraudsters but he came to the point where his job is at the risk and needs to find a proper person, someone who is truly a miracle worker.

And voilà - here comes suburban housewife Alma Fielding, around whom furniture moves by itself, dishes crash all over the place and even radio smashes on the floor by itself. Even more bizarre, Fielding produces various objects from her sleeves, like jewellery, gloves, etc. And she claims to have no idea how did they get there. Fodor is excited but naturally cautious so when he invites her over to Research center (where she is paid for each visit), he has the whole army of witnesses and helpers who can testify that Fielding is real deal. In the separate toom, Fielding is strip-searched and checked before she falls into trance and speaks possessed by a ghost named Bremba. Other people in the group started smelling unpleasant odours during seances and they generally felt alarmed and uneasy in her presence. As the experiments progressed, Fodor notices that Fielding often seems strangely detached from herself during seances, almost like she is not present and he started to wonder is this perhaps not about a ghost but about mental disturbance.

This is where experiments get more brutal - the more Fodor is suspicious, the more it gets obvious that Fielding does everything to continue being the centre of attention, including perhaps cheating (there are strong hints that she was fraudster) but we can still not explain weird phenomena around her. Just when Fodor started to suspect this is all a reflection of her suppressed memory and she might have created Poltergeist out of long-buried traumas, the colleagues in the Institute demand closure of the experiment - they don't like the direction this research is taking and its all abruptly stopped and swept under the rug. Later we find out that no other but Dr. Freud approved of Fodor's experiments and found the theory completely reasonable and possible.  

"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.