Original subtitles

BABY CRIES

Let me tell you about a little girl born in Mexico.

She would grow up to be one of the most famous artists

in the world.

We all recognise her face, and that look.

But who was she really?

And why is she more loved now than ever before?

This daughter of the revolution lived no ordinary life,

and hers is no easy tale to tell.

Frida Kahlo was a rule-breaker.

The way she broke taboos, the way she broke the norm

was completely revolutionary and transgressive.

She doesn't respect things that should be respected,

like birth, blood, miscarriages.

She made no concessions about her art.

She was strong and ambitious and answered to no-one.

But she was also driven and tormented by love.

She said, "I love Diego more than I love my own life."

She would always come back to Diego Rivera, like an obsession.

An obsession that was painful.

So why do we still idolise her?

This mixed-up mess of contradictions.

And why can't we take our eyes off her?

What people see in her is all that power of rebellion,

irreverence.

For people who are queer, for people who are brown,

for people who are creative in different ways.

She teaches us about identity.

Art was her superpower.

In the end, I don't need her perfect.

She was genius.

BELL RINGS

THUNDER RUMBLES

Frida Kahlo was born under the rain.

July is a month of rain in Mexico.

And I have a theory

people that are born in the rainy season are different.

SHE SPEAKS SPANISH

What doesn't kill you make you stronger.

At the age of six, I had polio and my leg began to grow thin.

At first, I assumed that the children's taunts

wouldn't affect me, but later, they really did, and each time worse.

As she grew up,

she needed to be different, and needed to be noticed.

She was a rule-breaker!

She drank too much.

She smoked too much.

She used foul language.

And so what she's saying is,

"Yes. I am something else.

"What am I?"

Frida Kahlo was a daughter of the Mexican Revolution.

Mexico's revolution is really the first major social revolution

in the 20th century.

It was the first opportunity a country had taken to say,

"We want to change things."

"We're going to improve society."

Frida Kahlo claimed that 1910 was her date of birth,

even though she was born in 1907.

She wanted to align her date of birth

with the birth of this new Mexico.

She was making a statement about her devotion to all the layers

of Mexican culture.

Frida came from the village of Coyoacan,

in the middle of nowhere.

Surrounded by rivers, trees,

animals, flowers, the church.

There isn't really much going on.

So the experience of going to the National Preparatory School

in Mexico City changed her life.

In those days, it was very few women who started the preparatory.

You have to bear in mind that from the generation of 2,000,

there were only 35 women.

Students from very different backgrounds

would join in a single place and learned all together.

This is a generation of change.

Frida becomes part of this.

The students were very much involved into politics.

The Communist Party was very powerful at that time in Mexico.

And they had meetings and they had marches.

And Frida joined the young section of the Communist Party.

Dear Mama,

today I will stay at school because Diego Rivera

will deliver a lecture.

I believe it's about Russia.

And I would like to learn some about Russia.

If you would like to come, let me know at noon.

Send me five cents for an ice-cream cone

and five cents for quesadillas?

Your daughter, Frida.

If you were a student in the National Preparatory School

such as Frida was, there is no way you didn't know who was Diego Rivera

and what he was painting.

For the very young Frida Kahlo,

seeing Rivera talk,

that must have been fascinating.

Mexican muralist -

but a movement that completely changed the idea of art

in the world.

And my grandfather, Diego, promote himself as he being the inventor.

And he was the leading head.

The Ministry of Education implements the idea to produce public art

in public buildings.

We need to let the people, the common people, know,

through public walls, what has happened,

and what are we searching for?

In the walls, viewers could see a contemporary history.

You didn't need to read, but you could see the wall.

You could follow these stories.

Who was who.

What kinds of battles took place.

If you put yourself in front of one of these murals,

your life has been changed.

BELL RINGS

I fell in with a group called Los Cachuchas.

They were not communists, but liberals.

They were lazy and never studied.

They were called the Cachuchas.

According to their caps were cachuchas.

I've never heard of that word for cap, but...

She was very mischievous and so were they.

I was loafing around in class.

I was with the boys everywhere they went.

Instead of going to my classes, I went to theirs.

I barely passed classes, or I cheated to get good grades.

They were terrible, all of them terrible and very bad students,

which is something very, very incredible.

Because they were so bright. So bright.

The Cachuchas had a lot of admiration for

Alejandro Gomez Arias.

Gomez Arias was the speaker in school.

He always participated in all the meetings and all the trouble.

I fell in love with Gomez Arias and he with me.

He was handsome.

He was pretty good-looking.

I mean, when I saw him, he was an old man, but...

But I've seen photographs of him when he was younger.

And he was very gentle.

They were an interesting pair that way

because she's kind of fierce and he was not fierce at all.

When Gomez Arias took me home,

he would kiss me and recite verses to me.

I was in love with Gomez Arias, but I was very flirtatious.

He would become horribly jealous.

I wanted him to ravish me.

But he preferred to tell me nice things, to kiss me and hug me.

He had this passion for her and she had a passion for him.

He loved the vitality in Frida.

She was beautiful.

I think she was a beautiful girl.

So... And she was more fun than most people.

Lots of fun.

It was 16 of September, one day after the grito,

which is a very big festivity in Mexico

for the independence of Mexico.

In those days, there was sort of a fair going around the Zocalo,

in the main plaza.

Frido went to the fair with Alejandro Gomez Arias,

and there were stands with candies and with balloons

and with little toys.

And Frida was very fond of the little toys.

She bought a small umbrella, this kind of Chinese umbrella

that are used to decorate beverages.

And she was fascinated with that.

They were coming home from Mexico City on a bus, and the buses

at that point were pretty rickety.

They were wooden.

They were going to get on one bus, but she'd lost some toy,

therefore they got on the next bus.

She has this quote where she says,

"Most of my friends grow up slowly. I grew up in an instant."

She was about to be 20.

ALEJANDRO: I was sitting next to Frida.

The electric train with two cars

approached the bus slowly.

It hit the bus in the middle.

Slowly, the train pushed it.

The bus got ploughed into by a trolley car.

It was almost as though it was intentional.

I mean, he just kept coming and kept coming.

The bus bent more and more. For a time,

it did not break, but then it burst into 1,000 pieces.

It ran over many people.

There were dead people and people screaming.

Naturally, the first thing that I did was to look for Frida.

I picked her up and then I noticed with horror

Frida had a piece of iron in her body.

QUIET BEEPING

Frida's condition was so grave that the doctors did not think

they could save her.

They thought she would die on the operating table.

There was a metal handrail that pierced Frida Kahlo's body.

Everything - she was broken in many different parts.

In this hospital,

death is dancing around my bed at night.

I lost my virginity, a kidney was bruised, I couldn't urinate.

But the thing I complained about the most was my backbone.

I do not fear death.

It's pain I can't stand.

It's not that Frida Kahlo starts to paint from zero.

She liked to draw.

She liked art history.

We know that young Frida Kahlo,

she would make these short trips around Coyoacan,

and she would make drawings.

BELL RINGS

Some people wanted their photos to have colour, so you needed to

paint over the photo with a very thin brush.

The father showed Frida how to do this.

All this is before the accident.

So she's doing portraits of members of her family, her sisters,

one of her wealthy neighbours.

And she's so pleased with the result

that she writes in the back of the painting,

"This is my first work of art."

Listen, my Alex, if you can't come yet, write to me.

You can't know...

Alex, the last time you came,

you told me that you would return very soon.

One of these days...

The pen doesn't write well in tears.

I have done nothing but wait for that day

that still hasn't come.

Come to see me, Alex.

I want you to come and tell me that you love me,

even if it isn't true.

She pleads with him in other letters to please come and see her.

Oh, it's really horribly painful because Alejandro began to pull away

from Frida Kahlo while she was recuperating from the accident.

I think his parents probably thought "She's not suitable for him,"

and so they sent him off to Europe.

Frida was not an asset.

She had gone out of school, so it was...

She was not going to be improving herself.

What is Alejandro Gomez Arias going to do

with a crippled girlfriend?

So he steps aside, he abandons her.

"He has left me.

"This man who was to be the love of my life has disappeared."

So she has to rebuild herself from zero.

Her first self-portrait,

she did it as a gift for Alejandro Gomez Arias,

at the moment that he was trying to be...

not be her boyfriend any more.

And she sent it to him and she sent a note with it saying,

"Please hang it in a low place, where you can look at it

"as if you were looking at me."

MUSIC: Wish by Anna Calvi

# I got one more wish before I die

# So please don't you stop me

# No, don't you stop me... #

It's funny, because if you think in terms of today,

that would be almost like an act of harassment, no?

# Like a mirror staring out to sea

# My mind is free

# So please don't you stop me

# No, don't you stop me... #

So the message of Frida in the painting is,

no matter what happened to my body...

...I am still here.

And don't you forget that.

It's a very special painting for her.

VIBRANT LATIN MUSIC

If you want to become an artist between 1920 and 1940,

you have to be in Mexico.

It was like a procession.

At this time, in the 1920s,

Mexico was fun.

So it was a real flowering of culture.

After the Mexican Revolution, people went crazy about Mexico.

They all came.

A huge amount of artists, they wrote,

they painted, people from the cinema.

Orson Welles came with Rita Hayworth, who was really

very extraordinary, very beautiful.

And they were quite taken by, by Mexico.

They thought it was like coming to paradise.

By 1927, Frida Kahlo has recovered sufficiently from her accident

that she wanted to be an artist.

She had ambitions of being an artist.

She wants to meet them.

Her spirit was back.

And she decided that she had to paint.

And obviously, she loved doing it.

And I think she must have realised

that she wasn't bad, she was pretty good.

The reality must have been - "What is going to be of me

"if I'm not going to be able to go back to school

"and I'm not going to be able to

"become a doctor," as she wished to.

"What is going to happen to me?

"I'm not sure about it.

"I don't know if I have what it takes."

So she goes to see Rivera, when he was painting at

the Ministry of Education.

Her approach to Rivera based on the fact

that he was very important,

he was very well-known.

He had painted murals, he was a celebrity.

And she had already listened to him at different lectures

at the National Preparatory School.

Well, that's a strong reason to approach him, no?

She went to the scaffold where Rivera was painting.

She wasn't fazed by one of the most famous artists in the world.

She ordered him to come down from the scaffold and said,

"Listen, Diego, I need to make a living.

"Please look at these and tell me if I'm good enough."

She didn't have many, but she'd painted a few portraits,

some of them quite good.

And he says, "Yes, there is definitely something there.

"Interesting.

"You should pursue your idea of becoming an artist."

He told me that I should try to paint whatever I wanted,

without being influenced by anyone else.

That impressed me a lot, and I began to paint what I believe in.

"I may not be a formal artist like all you guys, but I am myself

"and I'm going to find my own way." Which is exactly what she did.

Post-revolutionary Mexico -

it was an opportunity for women, you know, to stand up and say,

"I'm not going to stay home.

"I'm not just going to be a mother.

"I want to try by my own."

This is the world that surrounds Frida.

This is the world

she has to find her own path, her own answers.

For someone as curious as Frida Kahlo, she would naturally

want to be a part of what's happening.

She really did - she wanted to belong with these women.

MELODRAMATIC MUSIC

Tina Modotti is originally from Italy.

She moved to Hollywood when she was young

and she was in the silent movies.

And she's quite, you know, adventurous -

says, "All right," she gets on a train and moves to Mexico City.

Tina Modotti becomes a photographer and she's also a political activist.

She was working for the Communist Party

and she has very strong leftist views.

And this, I actually think, is where Tina Modotti becomes...

..quite interesting.

She was a rebel.

There's no question about it.

She's outspoken.

She didn't really believe in marriage.

She's willing to pose without her clothes on, without shame.

Frida was fascinated with this type of woman

that she had never met before.

A young woman, a beautiful one,

a sexy one.

All of us at some point in our lives have looked up to an older woman

and wanted to be like them.

She's a role model for Frida Kahlo.

Tina Modotti, for example, joins Mexico's Communist Party in 1927,

and Frida Kahlo joins in 1928.

Frida was seduced by everything -

by Tina, by the Communist Party, who took her in,

by the group that was there.

There was Julio Antonio Mella,

a Cuban, who was a leader of students.

Che Guevara was not in at that time,

but Julio Antonio Mella was very much in that line

of being the, the perfect hero.

He was totally handsome! He's very handsome.

And Tina Modotti loves to take photographs of him.

And they fall madly in love.

At that time, the Communist Party was very powerful.

It was, it was in fashion in Mexico.

It was Julio Antonio Mella, it was Diego Rivera.

They were all the elite of the Communist Party,

and Diego Rivera,

he was quite a monument in Mexico.

CORK POPS

Tina Modotti threw fantastic parties.

These parties were wild.

And not surprisingly, Diego Rivera was one of the frequent participants

in this, in these happenings.

And I mean, his reputation preceded him.

The meeting with Diego was in the period when people carried pistols.

At a party given by Tina,

Diego shot a phonograph, and I began to be very interested in him.

In the context of the post-revolution era in Mexico,

it was common to carry a gun, just, you know, to keep things straight.

You know? And Rivera was that kind of man.

And it was then that Frida,

she started to see him in a different context,

not in terms of the master who makes murals -

"The man whose opinion is important to me."

Rivera was impressive.

He was huge.

He had this great personality.

He could be very funny.

He was very outspoken.

You know, everybody listened when Rivera talked, and I think

this is part of what Frida starts to see in Rivera.

I think he was the most famous painter in the world.

Possibly Picasso was more famous at that time.

So what's not to love about that for Frida?!

He was, he was sort of adorable.

I could see it - very easily.

Diego was a macho, but I think... he was not a womaniser.

You know, a Latin macho is somebody that denigrates women.

And Diego would never do that.

Never. Never.

He really likes them.

No? He...

But he wasn't able to be with one.

That was a problem.

He always said that he was good in bed

because he made love like a woman.

That is something difficult to understand,

but that's what he said!

There is a very funny story that when Diego Rivera arrived

to visit Frida,

Guillermo Kahlo asked him,

"I notice that you are very frequently coming

"to visit my daughter.

"I suppose you are interested in Frida?"

And Diego says, "Of course,

"otherwise, I didn't come to Coyoacan, like,

"so far, to see her."

And then Guillermo Kahlo said, "Ah, but you know she is a demon."

And Diego Rivera said, "Yes, I know."

"OK, I warn you, like, it's your problem."

Imagine - there's this, world-famous artist that is telling you,

"I want to make you a portrait in the most important mural

"I ever done."

Well, Frida fall immediately.

Absolutely.

Because also, it's a beautiful portrait.

This must have been extremely seductive for her.

You know, "This is the way he sees me.

"This is the way he wants me.

"He wants me to fight.

"He wants me to be a comrade."

No? "I have a voice.

"I'm not just a nice girl

"he likes and wants to go to bed with."

Once, once Diego could seduce Frida,

then she became devoted to Diego Rivera.

I believe they fell in love.

On January 10th, 1929, Tina Modotti and Julio Mella had attended

a political meeting.

The Mexican government think he's a troublemaker.

They think he's dangerous, partly because he is charismatic

and that he can maybe sway people more... So...

At this point,

Julio Mella has moved in with Tina Modotti and they could see

the building ahead of them.

But...

GUNSHOTS

..shots rang out and Julio Mella falls to the ground.

He's 26 years old.

He's quite young when he dies.

Tina Modotti is questioned.

The police suspect her.

What they argue is that, of course, this is a crime of passion,

that she's in love with somebody else, and has orchestrated the death

of Julio Mella.

So the police arrest her.

People know that she didn't kill...

She had nothing to do with Julio Mella.

It's like...

At the same time this is happening to Tina Modotti

in the police station,

she's being tried in the newspapers.

They're saying, well, basically,

if you're a member of the Communist Party, if you pose nude,

if you take on numerous lovers,

this is what's going to happen to you.

They did humiliate her at a time when she was obviously destroyed.

It's almost like a public shaming of Tina Modotti.

It's a way, in a sense, to punish women

who don't live by the morality of the time.

It's a lesson.

I think all women, including Frida Kahlo, understand that women

are supposed to live a certain kind of life.

They're supposed to be married.

They're supposed to be in the house, cooking, cleaning...

Remember, at this time,

in Mexico, women still don't have the vote.

During the revolution, there were a lot of promises made

towards women that they would have much more equality and in fact,

that, that never happened.

Mexican journalism destroying the woman in in less than five,

six, seven days.

Diego Rivera was really - he behaved very well because he...

..he accompanied Tina.

He took care of her.

He defended her from journalists.

He was very good at that time.

Very extraordinary.

Diego Rivera says that he came to Tina Modotti's rescue,

in his autobiography.

He was called to testify.

I'm sure Frida would have been impressed by Diego's actions,

standing up for their comrade and their close friend.

She knows that her friend is, um, crushed.

So that, I think, would have a huge effect on her.

Frida Kahlo understands what was happening.

She knows, of course, being with Diego Rivera, in a way, provides

a safe haven for her.

He was her way out.

And although she wanted to be independent,

as a woman on her own,

it was impossible to do.

I don't know if she convinced Diego Rivera

or Diego Rivera ask her to be married,

but what they did was something very small.

They went to a civil ceremony - only Diego Rivera, Frida Kahlo,

and her father.

The mother didn't go.

Remember, a person 20 years older, and a communist -

impossible for the mother to accept it.

Isn't she... She's smoking, isn't she?

She's smoking.

So she's incredibly irreverent about this situation

of getting married.

It's hilarious.

She looks - Frida Kahlo!

She doesn't pretend anything that she's not. Mm?

So it was kind of crazy,

crazy wedding.

The photo came out in the press, of course.

There was a huge scandal because of the ages.

You know, Frida was 22 and Diego was 44,

or something like that.

Diego was like, "Finally, I can construct a life."

The face of him was like,

"Finally, I can construct something."

I think Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera fell in love very quickly.

I think they... There was a mutual attraction they had for each other.

He was not a guy...

He just didn't want to get married.

I mean, he didn't really believe in marriage.

And he'd been with women for a long, long time, you know,

women who he had a serious relationship and had children with,

and yet he didn't want to marry them, but he almost immediately

wanted to marry Frida Kahlo. So I think that does say something.

When Frida and Diego married her father, Guillermo,

was in terrible problems of...

He has a loan on their house that he was almost going to lose

the Blue House, and Diego paid for everything,

he paid for the house and he put it through Frida's name.

And I think her father saw that this man could take care

of Frida, and probably her father realised that he wasn't going

to be able to pay all the medical bills that she was likely to have.

He was one of the five most well-paid painters in the world,

with Picasso, Matisse...

He was one of the most well-paid painters.

Immediately, they went to Cuernavaca to live in the house

of the Ambassador of the United States in Mexico,

to paint a mural for him.

He accepts that commission from the US Ambassador.

But this goes against everything that the Communists stand for.

That's really being a traitor.

All of the other communist artists say, "We are not accepting money

"from capitalists for any mural commissions."

Diego Rivera continues to accept.

He actually wanted to just paint.

Remember, this is a time of big divisions in the Communist Party,

and Diego has been seen as not supporting the Communist Party line.

Taking work from capitalist Americans to paint a mural

is the final straw.

The instruction is, get rid of Rivera,

get him out of the Communist Party, and that's what happens.

So he says goodbye, but he still is an artist from the left.

He knew what was going to happen.

There's no way that Diego Rivera did not know he would be expelled.

And even though it was a very contentious relationship

with Mexico's Communist Party, this, this was his life

and these were his friends.

And they were no longer his friends.

They were his enemies.

I always wondered, like, how must that, must that feel

for Frida Kahlo, losing her friends as well?

She had no choice, really.

She could not have stayed with Diego Rivera and remained

in the party when he is expelled.

So...

..what's, what is she going to do?

I mean, she leaves the party.

She describes the first year of marriage, and she said

that she took care of her house.

She dusted the house.

She spent her time taking Diego his midday meal,

with sort of flowers and a basket.

I think she did a lot to please Rivera.

I think she was just playing the role of his exotic little wife.

And she was...

It wasn't perfect for her because she had too much,

too much going on inside to play that role forever.

I think in the first year, she was, she was happy.

Then half as happy because Diego Rivera was starting to

get affairs with other women.

I don't... I'm not very sure that she wanted so...

..erm...

..so...to be a mother.

You know? I'm not sure.

I think that for her, the most important thing,

apart from her paintings, was Diego Rivera.

And she says Diego Rivera is such an important person

that has to be travelling all the time and working,

and with more important subjects than being a father.

The first year of marriage, she lost a child, and Rivera

was having an affair.

She was terribly unhappy.

In 1929,

she paints this portrait.

Time Flies By, as it's known.

What is she saying?

She's searching for her identity as an artist.

"I may be just married to this great artist who's larger than me,

"who's more important than me, he's in the control of everything,

"Everybody thinks I'm Rivera's wife only. But where am I?"

"I have to find my own place."

"This is my time."

That's what she's saying with the plane and the clock.

It's not about the past.

It's about now.

So then what's the next step for the revolutionary artist?

She's 23.

She's in a foreign country.

She had no friends.

In that point, they only have each other.

It's Diego's world.

He's the famous artist.

She's just starting out.

She was mostly known as the little wife

to the great, you know, maestro!

You will always be in the shadow. Always.

"They came at six with the ambulance

"and got her in the agonies of birth pain,

"out of the pools of blood she had made.

"She looked so tiny, her tresses wet with tears."

She's it's as though, with Frida Kahlo, pain drove her to paint.

She said, "I had to paint it because I felt murdered by life."

I think she made no concessions about her art.

She can't make a conventional portrait.

She was not willing to fulfil what they expected to see.

BABY CRIES

Let me tell you about a little girl born in Mexico.

She would grow up to be one of the most famous artists

in the world.

We all recognise her face, and that look.

But who was she really?

And why is she more loved now than ever before?

This daughter of the revolution lived no ordinary life,

and hers is no easy tale to tell.

Frida Kahlo was a rule breaker.

The way she broke taboos, the way she broke the norm

was completely revolutionary and transgressive.

She doesn't respect things that should be respected,

like birth, blood, miscarriages.

She made no concessions about her art.

She was strong and ambitious and answered to no-one,

but she was also driven and tormented by love.

She said, "I love Diego more than I love my own life."

She would always come back to Diego Rivera - like an obsession.

An obsession that was painful.

So why do we still idolise her -

this mixed up mess of contradictions?

And why can't we take our eyes off her?

What people see in her

is all that power of rebellion, irreverence.

For people who are queer, for people who are brown,

for people who are creative in different ways.

She teaches us about identity.

Art was her superpower.

In the end, I don't need her perfect.

She was genius.

TRAIN TOOTS

I think Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera fell in love very quickly.

She'd become pregnant, but then lost the child.

She creates a drawing.

On Frida's belly is an image of a foetus

that looks like she erased but is still visible.

Diego may have also been cheating on her.

It wasn't easy, of course,

but Rivera still signified many things for Frida.

BELL RINGS

TRAIN TOOTS

Mamacita Linda, the route to San Francisco is just spectacular.

The train travels all along the coast.

I was delighted to see the sea for the first time.

When Frida first arrived in the US, she's 23 and Diego is 43.

She's been married a little over a year.

So when they arrive, yeah, they're newlyweds on one level,

but it's not, you know, like, "Oh, everything is so blissful."

They've already gone through a lot.

But, you know, she had been wanting to come to San Francisco

since she was a teenager,

and so this was a dream for her, you know, come true.

MUSIC: Tu Vuo Fa L'Americano by Renato Carosone

# Tu vuo' fa' l'Americano

# 'Mericano, 'Mericano

# Sient'a mme chi t' 'o ffa fa'? #

I mean, arriving in San Francisco, even today,

it's considered the New York of the west coast.

Very upscale, very cosmopolitan,

with theatres and, erm, promenades.

This city is in a marvellous location.

There are neighbourhoods for foreigners

from every part of the world.

We live near Chinatown.

Imagine, there are 10,000 Chinese residents here.

They sell beautiful things in the stores.

Handmade clothing and textiles made of the finest silks.

She had to be dazzled by this glistening city.

Frida just loved seeing the bay,

Fisherman's Wharf.

She really was fascinated with the Italian fishermen,

as she writes to her mother on a postcard.

You know, at that time, it was fish and coffee smells.

Diego hasn't started work yet painting the mural,

so I'm going here and there with him all day

and we're very happy.

He's good to me and he loves me,

at least up to now, very much.

It's Diego's world. He's the famous artist.

He is kind of at the height of his career.

She's just starting out.

She was mostly known as the little wife to the great maestro.

She's got a lot of heart, a lot of chutzpah,

but she's 23.

She had no friends, she's in a foreign country.

Segregationist signage that one would see -

no Mexicans, no dogs, no negroes -

this was a common occurrence.

Frida must have felt a little bit...

Felt a little bit as if she were a second-class citizen.

Diego gave a talk yesterday at the ladies club.

The gringos are so dull here

that any foolishness attracts their attention.

They just stand there with their mouths gaping

when they see my jade necklaces.

They size me up as if I were some kind of rare beast.

Never is Frida more Mexican...

..than when she's in the US.

She brought this trunk, actually, full of Mexican clothes

and the jewellery and everything.

She wants to distinguish herself from the Americans,

from the gringas.

She hates their style. She says that they're dull and they're scarecrows.

She develops her persona and her style.

She transforms herself.

People are really taken with her because there's really nobody

in San Francisco who's dressed like this,

and so there are stories, you know, about them walking down the street

in North Beach and people stopping and kind of commenting

on what she's wearing, and she loves it.

All the photographers come to see Diego Rivera

and they find this beautiful, beautiful, flamboyant woman.

The photographers, they're going wild over her.

It was a collaboration, and you can see it.

She knows how to compose herself and strike a pose

and craft the way she was looking.

She was never an object. She always had agency.

Diego...loved the United States,

so I think that the idea of Diego to go into the United States

with his mural says, "I'm going to be the king

"of the most important country of the world."

Diego is happy to be painting here.

He has a lot of subject matter to sketch and draw.

You know how he loves machines, factories and everything like that.

Rivera is invited to paint at the stock exchange,

and he made plans to have this marvellous mural.

As you know, in his heart, Diego was a communist,

he believed in equality,

yet he paints this mural

in a building that is a monument to capitalism.

Yes, he's kind of mild in his criticism

in the stock exchange.

Why?

Because he was amazed at what he saw.

You're standing in this mine of gold.

You have oil, you have minerals, you have industry.

So he becomes seduced by the US, no?

Yesterday, Diego gave a conference.

A large crowd of people attended and everybody congratulated him.

He's "el gran caca" here in San Francisco.

They don't even let the poor fellow go to the bathroom in peace.

Frida sees that Diego was treated as a cultural hero.

This must have been very impressive for Frida.

This thing about becoming an artist is a serious issue.

You can make a living, you can be respected,

you can be heard.

I've been painting quite a lot - almost all day.

I've made six pictures and everyone has liked them very much.

I think this might be the only opportunity I have to meet people

who perhaps in the future might be interested in buying my paintings.

She clearly had ambitions.

She's really, I think, flourishing.

Diego, he was proud of her work.

He was there to support Frida.

Diego wants me to have an exhibition here.

It's an opportunity for me because I can sell something.

It will be more than silly for me to pass up this chance,

don't you agree?

So, Diego wanted to find a woman

to represent California.

This woman, she becomes the earth mother of the mural.

She's the focus of it.

He meets the tennis star Helen Wills Moody.

She's a star.

She was just on the cover of famous magazines.

She'd won Wimbledon.

She was really riding this wave and he really is taken with her.

He refers to her as having the fine, chiselled features

of a Greek statue.

She's spending all this time with Diego.

She's posing nude.

Helen had a convertible, and they would be seen driving

in the hills of San Francisco, and Diego wouldn't come home.

I think Frida knew what was going on.

Diego wasn't just unfaithful, he could be quite cruel.

You know, he could really throw these affairs in her face.

He's creating this huge image of her on this wall,

and she's exactly the opposite of Frida.

Mamacita Linda, I just want to leave this place.

These dumb gringos really annoy me now.

I am painting and I hope I can do the exhibition.

Frida was not happy in the US, but this doesn't mean

she didn't realise what you could achieve.

A lot of people look at this painting

and they think that Frida is showing herself

as the little wife to the great, you know, maestro,

but she is making herself stand out.

What is she wearing? This beautiful red rebozo.

I mean, it just ignites this painting.

At the top of the painting, she has included a ribbon

and it says she's painted it for Albert Bender.

Albert Bender, who's one of the most important art patrons

of the San Francisco Bay area.

His business was insurance, but he loved art.

Frida knew exactly what she was doing.

If she had just done a self portrait,

I don't think at that time it would have had the same interest

for people wanting to show it throughout the US,

because they didn't know who Frida Kahlo was.

But if they say, "Oh, yeah, here's this famous Diego Rivera,

"we know him. Oh, and there's his wife, Frida.

"Oh, and she made the painting. Oh, how interesting."

She's very canny.

And you know what? It worked.

Because Albert Bender did loan it to this exhibition

at the Palace of the Legion of Honor.

It ended up getting discussed in the Oakland Tribune

and it was actually featured as the image for this article.

It is in San Francisco, where Frida Kahlo shows

professionally as an artist the first time,

so the year and a half she's in San Francisco,

she does achieve something important for her.

"I'm becoming an artist, a professional artist,

"an artist with my own voice.

"All my hard work will take me somewhere."

FERRY TOOTS

Diego Rivera is a very ambitious artist,

so if he is going to be painting large-scale murals,

he needs power-player patrons.

Rockefeller was the richest man ever existed on Earth.

Nobody else ever has put so many money in one hand, ever.

How it was possible that he was doing murals to Rockefeller?

Being a communist and work for Rockefeller?

If you can think of the worst thing in life, it was Rockefeller.

The Rockefeller family were one of the largest art patrons

and they were the force behind the Museum of Modern Art

in New York City.

Abby Rockefeller, she commissioned Diego,

and was comfortable with the communist element in his persona,

in his history, in his politics and in his art.

So she seemed to be rather radical...

..for her position in life,

and Frida really liked Abby Rockefeller.

They seemed to get along well.

Modern art was brand-new in the United States,

so for him to be included in a group of modern artists

like Picasso and Matisse,

his career is about to, erm...

..go viral.

SHE LAUGHS

Diego is painting at the Museum of Modern Art.

After working all day, he has to get dressed up in a tuxedo

and go out to dine.

Everyone has received us very well

but, no matter what, one just can't enter into this class of society.

Although the gringas I've met here are good people,

I don't feel that comfortable with them.

And besides, I don't really enjoy friendships that much.

"November 16th, 1931,"

"New York City.

"Met Frida and Diego at this banquet that was held in his honour.

"I got so excited about Rivera, I spoke for the entire evening.

"I asked Rivera if I could help him with his huge frescoes

"and, to my surprise, he said, 'Sure'."

These are just a few diaries of my grandmother.

My grandmother, Lucienne Bloch, was a single woman,

22 years old, aspiring artist.

After discussing fresco for hours at this banquet, erm...

..Frida walked up to my grandmother and she said, "I hate you."

She thought she was flirting with her husband Diego.

Then my grandmother explained, "I have no signs at all

"to ever make it for your husband,"

and explained that she was raised in a household

where her father always had girlfriends.

My grandmother knew exactly what Frida was going through

but she said she would never, ever do that to Frida.

And that was the beginning of their friendship.

Mamacita Linda, we're living in a very good hotel with every comfort.

The Barbizon-Plaza Hotel.

The hotel is good but very expensive.

It's a block away from Fifth Avenue, where all the shameless,

super-rich ricachones live.

"Went to see Frida at her hotel, Barbizon-Plaza,

"which she can't stand since the elevator boys snub her

"because they can see she is no rich person.

"The other day she called one of them a son of a bitch."

They're snubbing her. They think she's just a poor pauper.

She's a Mexican, she's wearing a long skirt, she's not fancy,

so the elevator boys are kind of like,

"Get your own bag."

The Barbizon Hotel was situated at the heart

of one of the most expensive neighbourhoods in Manhattan.

Saks Fifth Avenue, Bergdorf Goodman,

is the place where nobody can afford to shop.

The Barbizon Hotel overlooks this beautiful, relatively young park

that is normally breathtaking...

..but at that time...

When they got to San Francisco,

the Great Depression hadn't really taken hold of the country yet.

By the time they got to New York in 1931, where wealth and poverty

have routinely lived side-by-side,

now they're literally on top of each other.

That had to be very disturbing for both of them.

New York is a Babylon.

There is so much wealth and such misery at the same time

that it seems unbelievable that people can bear

such a difference in classes.

There are millions of people without work and without food

and homeless, and they don't have even a shimmer of hope.

People were starving everywhere.

Erm, there were protests,

and the violence against labour union was severe.

What Frida realises when she's here is that this idea

that the United States is kind of this land of the free,

this place where no matter who you are, you can rise up the ladder

and you can make it as long as you work hard,

what she's discovering is that a lot of those ideals are myths.

What's interesting in the MOMA exhibition is that,

because the Depression has gotten worse,

that there is a lot more, erm...

..room for critiques of capitalism.

Diego Rivera, he essentially does a series of frescoes.

This central piece, where you have these three different layers.

You have the tremendous prosperity of New York City,

even in the middle of a Depression,

and then underneath that is a flophouse.

You have lots of unemployed. They're frozen assets.

It's human capital that's not being put to work.

And then in the bottom level, you have another set of frozen assets,

and that is a very secure vault

where rich capitalists are keeping their money.

It is a bold thing to do and I think this was

a pot-shot of sorts that the Rockefellers were willing to take.

This fresco is his most overt critique of US capitalism

up until that point.

And he gets away with it, right?

He's a star.

One would give a right arm to be invited

to a Museum of Modern Art opening...

..because of the people you're rubbing elbows with -

the elites of New York like the Astors and the Whitneys.

Frida was surrounded by well-known people

like actors Paul Robeson and Edward G. Robinson.

You also have Alfred Stieglitz, the gallery owner and photographer,

and his wife, Georgia O'Keeffe, the painter.

Frida meets Georgia O'Keeffe

and, yeah, they seem to... they seem to hit it off.

You know, they're at really different places in their careers.

I mean, Georgia O'Keeffe is very well known at this point.

In terms of women artists, she's one of the most well-known,

which, for Frida, would have been important. Here's a role model,

somebody who made it as a professional artist.

She sees that it's possible for a woman artist

to become successful.

She really likes Georgia and there's this connection.

They did have something more than just a friendship.

THUNDER

Georgia, it was wonderful to hear your voice again.

Every day since I called you, I wanted to write you a letter.

I wrote many, but every one seemed more stupid and empty

and I tore them up.

I can't write in English all I would like to tell, especially to you.

I thought of you a lot

and never forget your wonderful hands and the colour of your eyes.

I will see you soon.

I will bring you flowers.

But it is so difficult to find the ones I would like for you.

I would be so happy if you could write to me,

even two words.

I like you very much, Georgia.

Frida.

You know, with both Frida and Diego,

one of the misconceptions about their relationship

is that Frida was this victim whose husband was always cheating on her

and that she wanted this monogamous relationship.

There's an element of that that's true,

but she was very comfortable with her sexuality as well.

An open relations are wonderful in theory

but they're complicated in execution.

Frida Kahlo and Georgia O'Keeffe became friends.

They had...

..a small affair.

They had a connection on a very personal level.

But nobody could have substituted what Rivera meant for Kahlo.

I think she needed him and he needed her

and I don't think either of them could function very well

without the other one.

I mean, she said, "I love Diego more than I love my own life."

Winter here is the saddest thing.

The sky is the colour of a fly's wing

and the streets are full of melting snow.

I'm completely disillusioned with the famous United States.

Everything is just for appearances,

but underneath it all is nothing but crap.

Diego feels more or less the same.

He has developed a distaste for this country.

Unfortunately, he has to work, so we're going to Detroit.

Diego has a crazy dream of painting the steel industry there.

Diego Rivera, he is a man of two minds,

as many of us are.

You know, we want to earn a living,

we want to improve our station in life.

We also understand as workers what that means.

So it's a tightrope to navigate.

The Fords, another wealthy American family,

who made their millions producing cars.

Ford, he's making his living by overworking the workers.

And with the Depression, nobody's buying cars,

so you have to lay people off.

These workers don't have unemployment benefits.

They're just laid off and that's it.

GUNFIRE

GUNFIRE

Violence, confrontations, four deaths, many people injured.

It's a very complex moment...

..that Diego and Frida arrive in.

The question is, will he convey this in the mural?

Obviously, Frida, yeah, she was quite disturbed that, OK, the...

Here's your patron, this man who just, you know,

ordered these peaceful protesters to be killed.

There is never the question of refusing to paint this mural.

Rivera has leftist politics

but I think ultimately they're secondary to...

..his desire to paint.

I mean, that's his real passion.

There is something very uncomfortable about it.

And then there's something extraordinary about what he paints.

He is deliberately creating a mural

that glorifies working men in a modern factory setting.

That had to be a deliberate slap in the face to Ford.

He thinks that the revolution is going to occur

by marrying the technology of the United States

with the sort of communist philosophy

of emphasis on workers' rights.

These workers on the assembly line,

they're the real creators of a utopian future.

This city seems to me like a shabby old village.

I don't like it at all.

The industrial part of Detroit is really the most interesting.

The rest is seen all over the United States -

ugly and stupid.

But Diego is working very happily here,

like a child with a new toy.

She starts actually going to a studio

that was set up for her at the Detroit Institute of Arts.

While Diego is creating in the courtyard,

she's creating in her studio.

A little bit about what she thought about Detroit

comes out in Self-Portrait On The Borderline,

where she's standing on a sort of pedestal

in a very pretty pink dress. Very uncharacteristic.

Not a Tehuana dress, she's in a little fluffy pink dress.

On one side in the background is Mexico,

the United States on the right, and the United States is awful.

It's got smokestacks besmirching the sky.

For Frida, this is a little more of a critique.

Do you see the American flag in the smoke of Ford industry?

She's making a statement about the United States

and the power of somebody like Ford Industries.

You know, that somebody like Henry Ford, this man who just, you know,

ordered these peaceful protesters to be killed,

if he can be a hero in the United States,

the land of the free, what does that mean?

When Diego was working full-time on the mural,

Frida is just homesick.

What am I doing all by myself in this Detroit apartment...

..in a place I don't know, without any friends?

And then my grandmother comes along and Frida said, "Don't leave.

"Just stay with us for a while.

"Stay with me."

"June 11th, 1932,

"Detroit.

"My God, I never wrote of Frida's, baby.

"It has been the biggest subject in everyone's mind since I'm here."

I am two months pregnant.

I want to vomit all the time and I am fed up.

I get tired from everything since my spine hurts.

At this moment, the situation for me is rather difficult,

since poor little Diego,

no matter how much he wants to take care of me, he cannot,

so I will not count on him for anything.

I do not know whether it would be good or not to have a child.

He didn't want any kids.

He said, "If you had a baby and I have a commission, wherever that is,

"way out of Mexico, you remain here with the baby.

"There's no way we can take the baby around wherever I go,

"so you decide.

"You decide.

"I cannot lead the type of life that I want with babies.

"I can take you with me whenever you want, but that's it."

I think what I would say is she felt really conflicted.

I think, yes, a part of her very much wanted to have a child.

"Tuesday, July 5th, 1932.

"Detroit.

"Sunday evening, Frida was so blue and menstruating, so went to bed

"and doctor came and told her as usual that it was nothing.

"In the night, I heard the worst cries of despair,

"but thinking that Diego would call me if I could help,

"I only dozed and had nightmares.

"At five, Diego rushes in the room, all dishevelled and pale,

"and asks me to call the doctor up.

"They came at six with ambulance and got her in the agonies

"of birth pain out of the pools of blood she had made

"and over the huge clots of blood she kept losing.

"She looked so tiny.

"12 years old, her tresses wet with tears."

Bad news.

Yesterday I miscarried without apparent reason.

It's all over.

"I went to visit Frida today.

"I brought her a fake telegram from Henry Ford.

"She laughs and, at the same instant, cried more and more

"at the idea of not being able to have kids."

The foetus did not take form, since he came out all disintegrated

in spite of my being already three-and-a-half months pregnant.

Who knows what the devil is going on inside of me?

I had such hope to have a little Dieguito.

This is...

This is heartbreaking.

Small in size, but...

..just completely overwhelming.

She is broken.

She almost died here.

She calls it The Lost Desire.

She doesn't call it Henry Ford Hospital

the first time she shows it.

Even if you're ambivalent about having a child...

..if you lose a pregnancy...

..it's a loss.

Lying in her hospital bed, floating in a vast empty plane,

and way in the distance is the Rouge Plant, where Rivera was.

The sense of solitude is amplified.

She's... It's as though with Frida Kahlo,

pain drove her to paint.

It's a woman not shown from a man's perspective

but from the perspective of her own self.

It is incredibly personal.

"August, 1932.

"We watched eclipse from the museum roof.

"Frida was cross and so I hardly spoke to her.

"Frida working hard, but she was like the wildest animal

"when anyone came into the studio.

"She would be so cross,

"she would swear each time a fly came settling on her arm."

"September, 1932.

"During lunch, there came a telegram for Frida.

"I said how I hated the things,

"since they generally always had bad news.

"This one did.

"Her ma is very sick in Mexico."

Frida knows that she's got to rush to Mexico immediately

and Diego says, "You need to go with her."

TRAIN TOOTS

My grandmother had her little Brownie box camera.

You can tell she's just so melancholy.

When you know what she's just experienced within the last month.

Sadness - you can see sadness.

"Friday, September 16th, 1932,

"Mexico.

"Went to Coyoacan with Frida.

"Her ma is in awful shape and looks deadly pale.

"Her pa is a dear. Very fussy, deaf and shabby.

"Worry hangs on the whole house."

Her mother is sent to the hospital to have gallstones removed

and then she can't withstand...

Like, 72 hours after, she passes away.

Your mother is your roots.

No matter what kind of relationship you have with her,

life changes when your mother is gone.

And that is something all of us have learned.

Because no matter when your mother dies,

it's always premature.

You're never prepared.

If you can think about the losses she's endured

in just a few months.

Loses her child and then her mother dies.

Trauma is something that...

..can't be remembered and can't be forgotten

because it's so painful.

You can't find the words to express it.

It's unsayable.

Frida Kahlo is a woman who can paint something

that has been almost impossible to communicate in the past.

No-one ever, ever thought that such experiences

were worthy of representation.

I adore you, my Diego.

I feel I have left my child alone and that he needs me.

I can't live without you, my darling little child.

Everything seems horrible to me without you.

I'm more in love with you than ever

and every day more and more.

I send you all my love.

Your nina chiquitita.

I know that my grandmother talks about, when they get back,

that he looked very thin.

She could barely recognise him.

But that the work that he had done was incredible.

Diego adds a child to his mural.

I think that, you know, he was affected by the trauma

of the miscarriage as well, yeah.

I think he did care. I think he was really...

I think Diego was really afraid that Frida was going to die.

"I went to see Frida today.

"She seemed so glad to see us and said she's been sometimes so lonely

"in the afternoons that she would just cry.

"We passed all afternoon in a movie

"to see the gruesome film Frankenstein,

"which Frida wanted to see again.

"It was the kind of thing to joke about..." It's alive!

"..so exaggerated was the gloominess.

"Then went to a Spanish restaurant and had a kind of strong stuff

"like vodka, which one drinks with lemon and salt.

"We acted most crazy and laughed a lot together."

I do think it's pretty nice, yeah.

That they got to hang out and just be normal together.

The Rockefeller Center is a moneymaking

capitalist dream come true.

Taller than almost any other buildings in the country.

70 floors of offices,

you know, TV and film studios, retail shops.

There is a skating rink.

It is impressive.

The mural shows a man at the centre

standing over kind of a glass orb

with options.

On his right, he can opt for an orderly communist world.

On the other side of the mural is the...

..decadent capitalist world,

where babies are crawling around naked, unattended,

where people are drinking alcohol.

The repression of striking workers,

erm, the use of gas masks.

So far, you know, provocative, but OK.

And then he decides...

..if he's gotten this far, he can go one step further.

He inserts Lenin in the mural.

Lenin is the communist Russian leader who ousts the tzars,

who were the Rockefellers of Russia,

in a very aggressive way,

and converts Russia into a country

where, theoretically, wealth is going to be shared equally

and there will be no super rich and no extremely poor.

So this man is the antichrist to wealthy America.

I think he has something to prove.

I mean, in some ways, he more than makes up for

not taking a stand in Detroit.

He was asked to remove the portrait of Lenin.

But Diego Rivera, a card carrying communist,

absolutely refuses to alter his mural.

As a result, a disaster occurs.

"Frida told me not to lose a minute and make photos of the fresco,

"since things rash might happen any time now.

"I got up at seven and went to Rockefeller Center to make photos,

"though it was absolutely forbidden.

"They couldn't possibly do anything

"to such a tremendous piece of artwork."

And she slips her camera out at one point.

She doesn't put it up to her face, but she puts it right here

and she just snaps some photographs, as much as she can.

And these are the only existing photographs.

"Four armed guards walked into the lobby.

"I saw them guarding the gates, covering every glass space

"with tarpaulin so no-one would know what was happening from outside.

"I was so furious, my heart almost burst.

"We were the last out. The rest is in the papers."

Workers for the Rockefellers

came in the wee hours with pickaxes

and hacked it off the wall.

Of course, it puts him at the centre of a controversy

and on the front pages of newspapers.

You cannot destroy a 40 foot work of art

by one of the most renowned artists in the world.

But what can you do? It's destroyed. You can't fix it now.

Imagine all of this happening

for the young Frida Kahlo in her early 20s.

I think she was fed up of the situation.

She felt...powerless.

She realises how important he is.

But then when they're censored...

..this same system...

..can destroy you if you don't follow the rules.

She said, "What are we doing here?

"If they don't appreciate who you are, let's go back."

So when they get back to Mexico, I think he's having

a kind of existential crisis because it's like, "OK, what do I do now?"

He's on top of the world and then everything falls apart.

He was grumpy and miserable.

He was furious at Frida for making him go back to Mexico.

It wasn't her doing, it was his own doing

that forced him to go back to Mexico.

And they were not getting along at all.

So he returns to the National Palace and he paints the last wall.

It sort of completes the staircase mural that he starts in 1929.

In that last wall, the present and future of Mexico.

He paints this sort of radical vision of Mexico,

sort of consumed in class confrontation.

And he paints Frida and her sister right next to each other.

Cristina has left her husband,

so she kind of becomes a part of their world.

They take her in to help her out.

Frida is portrayed as a teacher.

Sitting right next to her is Cristina,

presented in a much more sensual way.

He's representing Frida along with her sister

at the same time that he's sleeping with her sister.

It was completely devastating.

This, for Frida, was a treason.

She cut her hair off, she cut off her long hair,

and he loved her long hair.

She was mad as hell.

It was impossible for Frida to prevent that

Rivera couldn't have affairs with other women.

As long as this woman meant nothing to him, she was safe.

She was the principal woman in his life.

She was the partner, she was the wife,

she was the friend and the lover.

Frida wrote, "I thought this was nothing...

"..and now I realise how wrong I am."

Rivera was not only playing with Cristina,

he was thinking of having something more stable.

He helped Cristina to find a place where they can meet.

This was not something that was over a couple of weeks later...

..so it becomes something different.

What does he want? To have them both at the same time?

For the first time in her life, Cristina dreamt of being the wife

of Diego Rivera and enjoying the place that her sister had.

Like being introduced to wonderful people

and receiving all kinds of attentions.

The treason, it's both ways.

Your husband and your...

Not only your sister, your best friend,

your companion, your all.

It was terrible.

That is the reason of painting Unos Cuantos Piquetitos.

It just shows her absolute rage and misery at that time.

She said, "I had to paint it because I felt murdered by life."

Her body torn apart through stabbing and full of blood.

Woman as a sexual object...

..used and thrown away.

Just imagine this in the 1930s in Mexico.

It's about her pain,

but I think it's about the pain that women endure.

You know, violence committed against women.

She doesn't know where she's standing any more with Diego.

The affair made her rethink, what was Rivera capable of?

Was he selfish enough to destroy everything they had?

REPORTER: Mexico is about the only land that will have him.

He's dodged about from country to country,

so here he is, Trotsky, landing at Tampico with his wife.

All the world was following what was happening

and Frida was there, right in the middle of this turmoil.

If Diego Rivera crosses a line, it's with her sister, right?

Nothing hurts her more than that.

And if she crosses a line in return,

it is sleeping with his political mentor.

It's a terrible time for Frida.

The painting is a message for Rivera.

This is what you have done. You have torn me apart.

The irony of all this is, when she is in the climax

of her intellectual capacities as an artist,

her body turns off...

..and the pain takes over.

BABY CRIES

Let me tell you about a little girl born in Mexico.

She would grow up to be one of the most famous artists in the world.

We all recognise her face, and that look.

But who was she really?

And why is she more loved now than ever before?

This daughter of the revolution lived no ordinary life.

And hers is no easy tale to tell.

Frida Kahlo was a rule-breaker.

The way she broke taboos,

the way she broke the norm,

was completely revolutionary and transgressive.

She doesn't respect things that should be respected.

Like birth, blood, miscarriages.

She made no concessions about her art.

She was strong and ambitious

and answered to no-one,

but she was also driven and tormented by love.

She said, "I love Diego more than I love my own life."

She would always come back to Diego Rivera, like an obsession.

An obsession that was painful.

So, why do we still idolise her?

This mixed-up mess of contradictions.

And why can't we take our eyes off her?

What people see in her is all that power of rebellion, irreverence.

For people who are queer, for people who are brown,

for people who are creative in different ways.

She teaches us about identity.

Art was her superpower.

In the end, I don't need her perfect.

She was genius.

June 11th, 1932. Detroit.

My God, I never wrote of Frida's baby.

It has been the biggest subject in everyone's mind since I'm here.

If you lose a pregnancy,

it's a heartbreaking loss.

No matter when your mother dies, it's always premature.

You're never prepared.

Diego Rivera paints Frida and her sister right next to each other,

at the same time that he's sleeping with her sister.

FOGHORN

GULLS CRY

REPORTER: Mexico is about the only land that will have him.

He's dodged about from country to country.

So here he is, Trotsky, landing at Tampico with his wife.

Leon Trotsky arrives to Mexico in 1937,

and Frida actually goes to meet him.

Leon Trotsky was a Russian revolutionary,

second only to Vladimir Lenin.

And in the post-Lenin rivalry with Stalin,

he ultimately lost out.

Stalin had Trotsky expelled from the country.

So Trotsky went from country to country to country

without a home for many years.

He really has no place to go,

and there's a sort of desperate attempt by his followers

throughout the world to find a safe place for him.

Security is an essential issue.

This is a man who is clearly being hunted

by Stalinists throughout the world.

And Diego Rivera is the most famous Trotskyist in Mexico.

And, so, because of the stature of Diego Rivera,

bringing him home to Frida's house makes a lot of sense.

Trotsky arrived at a very interesting moment

in Frida Kahlo's life.

She came back to Mexico by late '33,

and then, suddenly, she discovered the affair

between Rivera and Cristina, her sister.

You know, it seems that the affair went on for years, too.

Like, it wasn't just a short fling.

What's amazing, though, to me, about Frida, ultimately,

is that she comes around and embraces her sister

and forgives her.

And she also forgives Diego.

Deep down, you and I love each other very much.

And even if we go through countless affairs,

we shall always love each other.

All these things that have happened and happened again

for the seven years we've lived together,

and all the rages that I've gone into,

have only led me to understand better

that I love you more than my own skin.

She always seemed to forgive Rivera.

But I think what Frida did

was began to have love affairs of her own.

Trotsky is somebody she admired,

because he was a survivor.

He was a revolutionary.

So because she's attracted to his level of intelligence,

why not become closer to Trotsky?

If Diego Rivera crosses a line, it's with her sister.

Nothing hurts her more than that.

And if she crosses a line in return,

it is sleeping with his political mentor.

There's sort of a wonderful leverage in it.

From 1936 to 1938,

I did nothing but paint.

This way, I am going to be able to be free.

I'll be able to do what I want without asking Diego for money.

The arrival of Trotsky, and soon after, Andre Breton,

the founder of the Surrealist movement in France,

amplifies the stage for her art

at a time when she is taking herself seriously

as an artist for the first time.

Andre Breton was the founder,

basically, of surrealism,

in terms of artistic movement.

So this guy is the big deal.

And, of course, when she finds out

that he's coming to Mexico to meet Trotsky,

she prepares herself through her work.

She did a self-portrait of her,

which she gave away to Trotsky,

to make sure this was hanging at his office at the Blue House.

Knowing that would be the first painting Breton himself saw.

And Breton falls enchanted.

I have, for long, admired

the self-portrait by Frida Kahlo de Rivera,

that hangs on the wall of Trotsky's study.

But my surprise and joy was unbounded

when I discovered

that her work has blossomed forth into pure surreality.

She's sort of calculating in terms of her art,

because she is a voracious reader of other people's styles.

An absolute original, but she is aware of the things

that are going on internationally,

and incorporates them and makes them her own.

She excelled to make an impact on Breton.

The paintings are totally surrealist

in their proposal, in their language.

And one of these paintings is the most surrealist work Frida did,

which is What Water Gave Me, from 1938.

Which is not only a very interesting painting from the perspective

of Frida's own position as a woman artist,

but the way she perceives unconsciousness

and portrays it in the painting.

And, of course, What Water Gave Me is a self-portrait,

but it is a self-portrait seen through the eyes

and the ideas of surrealism.

Which, of course, had a huge impact on Andre Breton.

He was convinced that Frida was the most surrealist artist

that he had ever encountered.

I have never had an exhibition before.

I was always shy and afraid to show my things.

The first time in my life I sold a work was a few weeks ago.

She, in 1938, returns on her own to New York.

Not as Diego Rivera's wife,

but she comes to have her first solo exhibition

at the Julien Levy Gallery.

Julien Levy was the most outspoken representative

of surrealist artists in New York.

And, of course, Andre Breton decides

he wants to write the presentation for Frida's show.

Frida Kahlo goes to New York

to have the show at the Julien Levy Gallery.

And this is Frida's opportunity

to really break into an international stage.

And, of course, having the patronage of Andre Breton is a big deal.

Who else could you think of a woman artist being able to do this?

Meeting Trotsky and Breton in Mexico,

having a single exhibition in New York,

as an artist, the world is in your hands.

And for Rivera, this is what Rivera wanted.

Somebody equal.

Another artist.

If he had come with her,

all the attention would be on Diego Rivera.

Diego Rivera was proud of her.

He was proud of her.

REPORTER: Flutter of the week in Manhattan

was caused by the first exhibition of paintings

by famed muralist Diego Rivera's German-Mexican wife, Frida Kahlo.

In a note on her exhibition,

Surrealist Breton ended by describing her painting as,

"A ribbon around a bomb."

She was totally unknown.

In New York, I mean, she was nobody.

She was the wife of Diego Rivera.

I mean, here she comes along.

"I'm a Mexican, modern woman artist showing her work in New York".

So it's a huge moment for Frida Kahlo.

She's there, yes, of course,

because of all these connections she and Rivera had...

..but it's her own work

and the quality of her painting

that talks for her.

Her first solo exhibition,

November 1st to the 15th, so just two weeks.

She shows 25 paintings.

And it includes some of the most shocking.

This was way ahead of what any other woman artist

was capable of wanting to show to the public.

Her body is the principal role in these paintings.

As a woman who gives life,

or death, in the case of birth.

A woman who has lost a child.

A woman who's assassinated.

To make this the topic of her single first exhibition in New York,

among the surrealists and this sophisticated crowd,

it was quite daring for Kahlo to achieve something like this.

She loved having a show,

and I think a lot of things sold,

and she got a nice writeup in Time magazine,

which was every artist's dream at that point.

Frida has a great success in New York.

She's commented in magazines like Time, like Vogue magazine.

She's very well received.

Some of her paintings are purchased.

She met all kinds of people, and everybody loved her.

And at that point, she was having a love affair with Nick Muray,

the photographer who took such great photographs of her.

Nickolas Muray was a very famous photographer,

and he was one of the first who started doing colour photographs

with the very special personalities.

Frida and Nickolas were lovers, and it lasted for a long while.

I think she found in Nickolas Muray

a friend who supported her,

a lover,

intelligent, prominent, well connected.

I also think he fell in love with her.

There's something that you have to see through the years.

She was excellent in letting you know

as a probable companion

that you were wonderful,

that you were the best,

and that she loved you more than any one.

You know, it's not a coincidence

that Nickolas Muray becomes her lover.

He's a pioneer of colour photography.

And that was something she was good at.

Posing for photographs, striking a pose,

performing identities in front of the camera.

So when you see this series,

they're doing it together, right?

They're collaborating. And it's magic.

I love this one, the red rebozo one.

Because she writes to him,

"You will always be under my magenta rebozo

"on the left side, near my heart".

And when she writes about this, she calls it, "FW",

Fucking Wonder, with the double entendre.

You can see by the photos that Nickolas Muray took of Kahlo,

how devoted he was to her image.

But even these photos,

if you look at them in a more critical perspective...

..they were kind of Hollywood style.

You can't see the real Kahlo through Nickolas Moray's photographs.

Frida was a woman more complex, more complicated.

The way Muray portrayed Kahlo

was just a fraction of her personality.

For the opening of Frida's exhibition,

Rivera and Kahlo had prepared a very careful list

of who should be invited and why.

Rivera had considered that she should invite Clare Boothe Luce,

who was editor of Vanity Fair.

A woman with huge connections worldwide.

So you see again that the two accomplices,

Rivera and Kahlo, are preparing the scenario.

Now, Clare Boothe Luce

specifically requests from Kahlo

to make a painting, a portrait, of Dorothy Hale.

Dorothy Hale was a dear friend of Clare Boothe Luce

who had recently passed away.

Dorothy Hale was a not-that-successful actress,

but she was a very good actress.

Tonight?

You wouldn't dare!

She died by jumping out of the Hampshire House

on Central Park South.

Frida Kahlo writes a letter to Diego, in which she explains

what she's going to do in terms of composition.

I want this to look almost like a film.

I want to portray Dorothy falling.

And then I want to portray her dead on the street.

I think about death very often.

I do not know what I would do if I were told I had one hour to live.

I imagine that if I were dying,

I would be thinking of Diego.

When Clare Booth Luce got it, she couldn't stand it.

She was sort of angry that Frida had made that kind of an image.

It wasn't what was intended, and she was appalled.

She can't make a conventional portrait.

She has to do something convincing

in terms of her own needs as an artist.

Frida Kahlo cared about what she had painted there.

She made no concessions about her art.

The only thing I know is I paint always what passes through my head

without any other consideration.

Diegito, I miss you so much, my darling.

There are moments when I feel like going back to Mexico

more than anything else.

I need you as I need air to breathe.

In Mexico, things were not so good for Diego Rivera.

Diego is an unemployed artist at this time.

In fact, most of the government muralist projects

have been abandoned.

And his relation with Trotsky starts to deteriorate very quickly.

Trotsky says to Diego Rivera,

"You're a great painter, you're one of the world's best,

"but you're a child when it comes to politics".

This happened over and over again, evidently.

And Diego Rivera finally had enough of it and said,

"I'm done. I'm out. I want nothing to do with you."

So this causes quite an uproar.

And Leon Trotsky then moves out of the Blue House.

This change eventually would put Trotsky

into a very dangerous situation.

And it was just a matter of time to suffer the consequences.

MUFFLED CHATTER

Frida Kahlo is aware of the things that are going on at home,

but she gets an invitation to go to Paris.

FOGHORN

Andre Breton invites her to Paris to have an exhibition.

I think Paris, for her, is like, "OK, I'm going to make it."

And she takes a boat.

Encouraged by Rivera, by the way,

because I think he really wanted her to succeed.

Mi ninita chiquita, don't be silly.

I do not want you, for my sake,

to lose the opportunity to go to Paris.

That will be the culmination of your success in New York.

Spit on your little hands

and make something that will put in shade

everything around it.

For you, my chiquita, deserve everything.

Your number one toad-frog, Diego.

REPORTER: For the second time within a few months,

France is faced with the possibility of war.

This time, to defend its own territory.

She comes to Paris.

It's in the spring of 1939.

And she feels that the war is imminent.

She can't stand the fact that the surrealists

sit in cafes and just gossip

while the world is falling to pieces.

Her letters, especially to Nickolas Muray,

are, like, scathing.

You have no idea the kind of bitches these people are.

They make me vomit.

They sit for hours and talk without stopping,

thinking themselves the gods of the world.

They are so damn intellectual and rotten

that I can't stand them any more.

So, eventually, Andre Breton organises a show.

But it's not a solo exhibition,

it's an exhibition called Mexique.

It was not a show about Frida.

Breton wanted to make an exhibition about his encounter with Mexico

and what he concluded about Mexico.

It includes Breton's collection

of eclectic Mexican folk art.

A lot of what she calls

in one of the letters, "junk".

And 18 paintings by Frida Kahlo.

Frida was extremely upset when she found out about this in Paris,

that her work was going to be shown side by side market toys!

There were a few reviews,

but it's not a triumph in the way that she had hoped.

And she can't stand Breton.

But she loves Jacqueline Lamba, his wife.

And apparently, also has an affair with her

and has a very long and beautiful relationship with her.

Jacqueline Lamba was young, she was beautiful,

and Frida was a woman very responsible of filling in her needs

in terms of her sexual life.

But I think Jacqueline and Nickolas Muray,

and all these other people who were significant for Kahlo,

at the end, they were fighting against a titan.

"Dear Jacqueline,

"the nights are long and difficult.

"The water, the ship in the dock

"and the parting that made you appear so small to my eyes,

"framed in that round porthole.

"Everything is untouched,

"but you know that all my eyes see,

"all I touch with myself from any distance, is Diego."

She came back to Diego Rivera.

She would always come back to Diego Rivera.

She painted for Diego Rivera to see the paintings.

She lived and moved and talked

the way that Diego Rivera would have liked her.

She moved around the world

in order to please Diego Rivera.

THUNDERCLAP

Rivera was very proud of Frida Kahlo having had a show in Paris.

But she got back...

..and things were really bad between them.

My situation with Diego was worse and worse,

till it came to an end.

He told me the worst things you can imagine

and the dirtiest insults I never expected from him.

Two weeks ago, we began the divorce.

The divorce is proposed to Frida.

It's not like a question,

it's not like something we have to discuss.

She never expected that Rivera

would terminate the kind of loyalty they had.

Because they could have had huge differences,

discussions, infidelities,

but all that was part of the game they were playing.

So she just didn't understand where this came from.

It's a terrible time for Frida.

And interesting enough,

it's the climax of her career as an artist.

The Two Fridas.

Apparently, it's the same woman.

But when you look carefully, it's not the same woman.

One Frida is dressed in white with a European wardrobe,

and the Frida on the right

is a Mexican woman.

What is she trying to tell us?

I feel like I am one woman

and I am another woman after these events?

So the first woman is the woman Rivera met.

Rivera was the first real man in her life,

and they had a marriage. They had a union.

But this Frida is suddenly put aside.

And the Frida that is left there has to be strong.

When you look at it, you see that both have, like, half hearts,

both are bleeding.

And maybe at this point,

after her miscarriage and after she's divorcing,

after Rivera had not just multiple affairs,

but one with her sister, as well...

..maybe she is showing that the roles of wife and mother

are wounding experiences for her.

The post-divorce freedom is carrying in her hands

a little miniature portrait of Diego Rivera when he was a child.

So the presence of Rivera diminished in the painting

up to a small little object in her hands.

Frida has played the role of the mother,

taking care of this little brat.

I believe the painting is a message for Rivera.

"You have left me like this.

"Broken, divided.

"This is what you have done.

"You have torn me apart."

BIRDSONG

She said, "The minute you divorce me,

"I don't want you to give me one cent.

"I'm going to support myself."

It's a really interesting period for her,

because she decides she's going to professionalise.

And she produces these incredible, incredible self-portraits.

She said, "What they want is my self-portrait.

"That's what they want. I'm going to do self-portraits."

She makes all these great self-portraits in the '40s,

because this is what collectors were asking.

She ends up painting herself once and over,

and with monkeys, and two monkeys and four monkeys.

And parrots, and you see in all these self-portraits

that she's constructing an image.

They're beautifully done.

She was never a better painter.

But at the same time, they become cryptic.

Almost like a closed door.

You can see, but you can't walk in.

This is what you want to see, here I am.

But you don't have a clue what's going on inside me.

1940, when she's really, really trying to be independent,

she finds out that gallerist Alberto Misrachi

sold one of her paintings,

and she's very excited.

Misrachi said, "I have some money for you, Frida.

"I sold one self-portrait. Great!"

But then she finds out that Diego bought it.

So she writes to him in a letter...

"All I've done is failed

"When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a doctor,

"and the boss squashed me.

"I lived with you for ten years without doing anything

"but causing you problems.

"And my painting is useless to anyone but me

"and you, who buys it, knowing that no-one else will."

Kahlo begins to suffer again because of her illnesses.

And the reality in terms of financial input

is that Rivera's taking care of her.

It is my opinion that the reason Diego Rivera started a divorce...

..was Paulette Goddard, the ex-wife of Charles Chaplin...

..who was here in Mexico while Frida was in Paris.

And when Frida came back from Paris,

Paulette was living across the street from the studio,

behaving like the new companion of Diego Rivera.

INCOMING CALL

One night, I received a telephone call

from the movie actress Paulette Goddard.

"Diego", she said, her voice trembling with excitement.

"If you know anything about gangster movies, brother,

"you're on the spot.

"The cops are swarming around your studio,

"and they look like they mean business."

On May 24th 1940,

someone attacked Leon Trotsky.

They manage to get inside of Trotsky's house,

and they shoot it up, unloading dozens and dozens of bullets

in Trotsky's bedroom,

with Trotsky and his wife hidden underneath the bed.

They didn't kill Trotsky.

He survived, almost miraculously.

So the police are looking for who could have carried out this attack,

and they suspect that perhaps Diego Rivera

has something to do with it.

Certainly considering his recent break with Trotsky.

So now Rivera knows that the police want to interrogate him,

so he escapes from Mexico,

he travels all the way to San Francisco,

with the help of Paulette Goddard.

And Frida is on her own,

and she knows it's just a matter of time,

something's going to happen to her.

It's not only the separation from Diego,

which in itself would have been enough to make me sad,

but there are many other which are more disgusting and exhausting.

The limit was when I was arrested by the police

on account of the Trotsky affair.

The police arrest her because they want to know from her

where Diego Rivera is.

But she has no idea.

After the arrest, she really hits rock-bottom.

Not only has Diego divorced her,

but she's now been arrested,

embroiled in an extremely dangerous situation.

And at this point, she becomes sicker and sicker and sicker.

My situation was desperate.

I didn't know where Diego was.

If he was dead or alive.

I was in such a state that I felt like dying.

I strongly believe that Rivera decided to divorce Frida Kahlo

as a way to keep her safe.

If, eventually, the Soviet police decided to go after him,

at least Frida would be safe if they were separated.

But then, a few months later, a Soviet operative finally kills

Trotsky with an ice axe blow to his head.

It is gruesome. It is gruesome.

Eventually, Frida Kahlo's health and Diego Rivera's concern for her

leads to him insisting that she come to San Francisco.

When Frida arrived in San Francisco, she was suffering such severe pain

that she could hardly move.

The stresses and strains of the past few months

had borne on her heavily.

But they were gone now.

Except for one. The fact of our separation.

The doctor who treated Frida Kahlo in San Francisco said,

"You both are connected so fully.

"So why don't you just accept what you both are?

"What I see is that Diego Rivera loves you a lot

"and that you are decaying in your health."

He said that for her health,

it was much better to be with Diego Rivera.

You can't have Frida Kahlo if you don't understand

Diego comes first.

Art itself is not enough.

At the end,

where is this woman without the person she loves?

There was a co-dependency.

They decide to get married again.

MUSIC: Historia De Un Amor by Carlos Eleta Almaran

And when they get married the second time,

they get married in San Francisco.

And, uh, it works.

# Siempre fuiste la razon de mi existir... #

The remarriage is working well.

Few quarrels, greater mutual understanding,

and on my part, less bothersome inquiring into the question

of other women.

I finally realised that life is like that

and the rest is just window dressing.

I really believe when Frida said that she loved him

more than her own life.

She must have hated him a lot of the time.

But that didn't mean she didn't love him.

Both of them agreed that they were not going to change.

Frida Kahlo would live in the Blue House

and he would live in the studio.

And Frida Kahlo would not accept a cent from Diego Rivera.

And then she started really blooming.

Frida had many friends in different areas,

and one of them was the director of La Esmeralda, the school.

And she said, "Why don't you come as a teacher?"

What she did wonderfully was giving the hope of being an artist.

Do what you know, paint what you know really.

Your own background, your own spaces.

Be yourself and sing, sing while you're working.

HE SINGS

The mark that she made in the life of these young men was immense.

They were very young, 14, 15, poor people, and they loved her.

THUNDER AND RAINFALL

By 1944, Frida was in constant pain.

And it's like if Frida is lying on a bed of broken glass.

She, during this time, painted one of her most tormented paintings.

Her hair is swirling around her neck,

almost going to choke her.

She's got Diego Rivera in her forehead and she's crying.

It's the one painting where she almost loses

that mask of reserve.

It's over.

But Diego is in her mind.

It's the last thing she knows she counts on.

She starts working on her diary.

Written words and drawings.

Concepts, poetics.

You can see pieces of her body.

You see blood.

Everything is falling apart.

I keep on wanting to kill myself.

Diego's what's keeping me from it, through my vain idea

that he would miss me.

She is more poetic and strong than ever.

But, the irony of all this is when she is in the climax

of her intellectual capacities as an artist,

her body turns off and the pain takes over.

They amputated my leg six months ago.

They've given me centuries of torture.

and at moments, I almost lost my reason.

Feet.

What do I need them for, if I have wings to fly?

She started not liking her day-by-day,

and she started abusing drugs and alcohol.

She didn't want to be, again, picked open.

No? Everybody will get tired of that, no? Sooner or later.

MUSIC: Clair De Lune by Claude Debussy

And she started to let herself go.

For her, the future was really terrifying,

and she decided not to go through that future.

Diego Rivera was very much aware that for Frida,

living like that was almost impossible.

He didn't want her to suffer that much.

And we don't know whether Frida took the pills by herself.

There are some versions that says that Diego helped her.

That in the family, it's a taboo. Nobody talks about that.

Probably. And I don't feel like something wrong, no?

If your companion of life, of all your life told you,

"I'm tired. I really want to go. Help me."

Well, maybe you try, no?

I await the exit with joy.

And I hope never to return.

Frida.

BIRDSONG

BELL TOLLS

SONG CONTINUES WITH FEMALE VOCAL

You know, watching that film footage of the funeral,

you can feel the pain of everyone there.

Even the fact that it was filmed

shows you how important and loved she was.

It captures Diego so heartbroken.

In that film, you can see his face becomes like grey and fallen.

It's just, everything fell in his face.

He was described as a soul cut in two.

When she passes away,

his life falls apart as well.

He's sick of cancer, but there's no attempt to continue.

He knows that without Frieda, his life is also over.

MUSIC: Gold Dust Woman by Fleetwood Mac

# Rock on, ancient queen

# Follow those who pale in your shadow

# Ooh, pale shadow... #

AUCTIONEER: I'm going to start the bidding here at $26 million.

At 26 million, 27 million, 28 million, $29 million.

$30 million.

$31 million. On this side...

I love to see Frida claiming $34 million

for a small painting.

I love to, because I know what it means for many others.

# Ooh, black widow... #

Whoever opens a door or a window, opens it for everybody.

And Frida Kahlo opened windows.

# Oooh, pale shadow of a woman

# Oooh, black widow. #