Miscellany: Vieira de Mello, FRIDA.

["Carlos Eduardo Rebello" <crebello@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Subjects: Re: Jose Ramos Horta supports death for terrorists
Presenty in Brazilian bourgeois media Sérgio Vieira de Mello is being blown
out of all proportion as a martyr for peace who was "pressuring" (in the
background, of course, therefore one can make a case for him without a shred
of evidence) for Iraqi self-determination. Nonethless, according to what one
"friend" (of the kind Voltaire asked God to get him rid of, as he could
dispose of enemies himself) said on TV, he was more concerned with a
28-year-old female secretary... In his last (and very sappy) interview he
gave the Brazilian press last Sunday, he spoke a lot about speedy
privatization of Iraqi public utilities. The impression he always gave me
was of a puffed-up parody of a Brit colonial administrator of the
whisky-and-soda variety.

Now, as to the second subject:
>    Re: FRIDA  KAHLO  AND  DIEGO  RIVERA

In general, I partake of the impression Lou had about the movie- it's
generally rubbish, and very conventional. Forgive me if I'm being too hard,
but the movie gave me the impression of selling into the line that Frida
only did "sick" painting because of unfortunate circunstances in her life
(crippling accident, teenage sweetheart fleeing away, Rivera's cuckolding)
that made her stray from the path of proper heterosexual love and family
life, and if it weren't for it she would become the Mexican Matisse, or
something like that.

As to Geoffrey Howe's "Trotsky", it isn't even good caricature; it's the
usual depeiction of Trotsky by liberal-minded people as the ineffectual good
chap who fell victim to Stalin's more properly "Communist" viciousness. More
painful and abusive, in my understanding, is te depiction of Natalia Sedova
as a nagging wife throwing a scene over Frida.

Neverthless...there are pleasant things: first: Selma Hayek, who is
ravishing; secondly: the beauty of the actress who plays Tina Modotti;
thirdly - and last but not least - there's the (done after real-life
photographs) scene when Trotsky and Frida climb the Aztec pyramid and Frida
asks Trotsky about his sons, which reminded me immediately of Trotsky's
"Leon Sedov: son, friend, fighter" and was, therefore, very movnig, if only
involuntarily.

Carlos Rebello