WEBVTT

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[gentle sanguine music]

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Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera.

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She was the self-portraitist,

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in search of her Mexicanness and haunted by pain.

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He was an unfaithful ogre,

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a politically committed muralist who painted like a giant.

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A take on \"Beauty and the Beast\",

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but starring two soul mates united

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by the love of their homeland.

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[flash whooshes]

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[whimsical music]

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[gentle playful music]

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[hand slaps]

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Mexico, the summer of 1934.

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A slap that was fully deserved.

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Diego Rivera, a renowned womanizer,

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had just committed the irreparable.

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Frida couldn\'t forgive him, because this time,

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it was a double betrayal.

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Her husband, Diego, was having an affair

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with her younger sister, Cristina.

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Frida, whose body had gone through so much physical pain,

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now had to deal with a different one: heartache.

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I suffered two grave accidents in my life.

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One in which a streetcar knocked me down.

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The other accident is Diego.

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[tram bell ringing]
[gentle playful music]

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The weather was fine on September 17th, 1925,

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when Frida Kahlo was on her way home to Coyoacan.

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The eighteen-year-old student was accompanied

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by her boyfriend.

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They found seats at the back of the bus.

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Moments later, a tram came off its tracks.

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It hit the bus full-on.

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[tires screeching]
[tram crashing]

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[gentle bright music]

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The streetcar crushed our bus against a wall.

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I wasn\'t afraid.

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The world around me exploded

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and I was a dancer covered in blood and gold.

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I didn\'t feel a thing because life was slipping away.

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A four-meter-long handrail had pierced my hip.

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Its jagged point had exited my vagina.

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Frida was bedridden for months.

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From her bed, she set off on immobile journeys.

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She explored suffering and discovered a world of solitude.

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She sought a way out.

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Now I live in a painful planet,

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transparent as ice.

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It\'s as if I learned everything in a few seconds,

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all at once.

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Her mother installed a special easel

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above her daughter\'s bed.

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Her reflection, in a mirror hanging on the canopy,

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was her only line of horizon.

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So naturally, she painted it.

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\"Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress\" marked the beginning

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of her imposed interest in her own image.

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I am not dead.

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And besides, painting is the best reason I am living for.

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[bright music]

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Paris, 1919.

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In the Montparnasse district,

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33-year-old Mexican painter, Diego Rivera,

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was at the end of his tether.

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[soft music]

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[rain pattering]
[match scraping]

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Too much booze, too many women and penniless.

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But something much worse had just been added

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to Rivera\'s long list of woes,

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the death of his 2-year-old son.

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And yet, for twelve long years in Europe,

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the painter had been working flat-out,

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with remarkable expressive energy.

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His brushstrokes were assured,

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his brightly-colored paintings

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of Mexico flirted with cubism.

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[soft music continues]

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The painter rubbed shoulders with the Paris avant-garde;

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with talent but without success.

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Diego Rivera was in dire need of a change of scenery.

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[singing in foreign language]
[bright music]

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[bell ringing]

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In 1920, the Mexican Revolution came to an end.

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[crowd cheering]

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Diego Rivera took advantage to return to his homeland

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to finally find a place for himself.

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[determined music]

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The Secretariat of Public Education was seeking artists

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to produce mural paintings of a new nation.

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Their task: to educate and elevate the Mexican people,

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most of whom were illiterate.

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A year later, Diego Rivera joined the Communist Party

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and began expressing his personal

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and politically engaged messages

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in mural paintings on public buildings.

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I want my paintings to reflect life

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in Mexico\'s society and, through the reality and order

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of authentic reflection, to show the masses

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the possibilities for the future.

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[clock ticking]
[alarm ringing]

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[bright music]

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Mexico, 1927.

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Since her accident, Frida Kahlo hadn\'t stopped painting.

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One day, she gathered her paintings and her courage,

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and set off determined to meet the most famous

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of Mexican painters: Diego Rivera.

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On meeting him, she dove right in.

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Frida excitedly waited for Diego\'s opinion of her paintings.

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She wanted to know if it was worthwhile continuing.

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Frida Kahlo had just put her fate

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in the renowned painter\'s eyes.

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Diego Rivera discovered paintings

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of a rare expressive energy,

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with sensitive lines, bright colors,

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but also a young woman of a singular beauty.

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She wore her hair long

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and had thick, dark eyebrows

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that met in the middle, above her nose.

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They looked like the wings of a blackbird.

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[engine whirring]

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[playful music]
[horn honking]

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[vehicle squeaking]

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A few days after their meeting,

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Diego visited Frida at her parents\' home in Coyoacan.

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While the young woman was impatient to hear his opinion

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on more of her paintings,

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she also wished for something more.

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She laughed, took my hand and led me to her room.

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Her paintings, her room, and her luminous presence

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filled me with wondrous joy.

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I didn\'t know it at that point,

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but Frida had already become

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the most important thing in my life.

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[arrow whizzing]
[arrow chimes]

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[gentle music]

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[flash whooshes]

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In 1928, Frida first featured

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in her lover\'s work.

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Diego painted \"In the Arsenal\",

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in which Frida hands out arms to insurgent workers,

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with a vast, red hammer and sickle flag flying above her.

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[moves to bright music]

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[girl gasps]

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August 21st, 1929.

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[bells ringing]
[people cheering]

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In her home village of Coyoacan,

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Frida Kahlo married Diego Rivera.

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According to Frida\'s father,

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\"It was a wedding between an elephant and a dove.\"

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[man groaning]
[fist thuds]

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[curious music]
[spaghetti squelches]

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5\'10\" tall, weighing in at 330 pounds,

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a deep voice, the hands of a butcher;

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it was rumored that Diego feasted on human flesh.

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And, notably, that of women.

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Ooh.

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[flash whooshes]

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But it would take more than that

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to scare off the beautiful Frida.

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Diego is a big kid, immense,

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with a friendly face and a slightly sad look about him.

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His bulging eyes, huge, dark and highly intelligent

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are barely contained by his eyelids.

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[flash whooshes]
[whimsical music]

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With the painter at her side,

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Frida found the strength and stability to support her.

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[solemn music]

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Long before her terrible accident,

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fate had already dealt her a nasty blow.

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Aged 11, she was stricken with polio.

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Her right leg atrophied and her foot stopped growing.

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Frida limped and was unsteady on her feet.

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As she grew up, she constantly tried

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to hide her disabled leg.

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[sun chiming]
[gentle music]

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I escaped through my imagination.

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I descend to the center of the earth,

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where my imaginary friend was always waiting for me.

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She was light as a feather

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and danced as if she were weightless.

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In her imaginary double, and in her appearance,

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Frida sought a strong, reassuring figure.

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[wings flapping]

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[upbeat music]

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Frida was happy.

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She embodied the perfect wife,

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dressed in a costume she created specially for her husband.

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♪ Ooh ♪

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♪ Ooh hoo ♪

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Traditional Mexican skirts,

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jewelry and lucky charms,

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which brought her closer to her roots

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and which she would wear for ever.

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♪ Ooh hoo ♪

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♪ Ooh hoo ♪

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[singing in foreign language]
[energetic music]

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Frida and Diego shared everything.

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The same national pride, the same desire for freedom,

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and the same imagination.

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[gentle music]

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The two artists continued to paint their Mexican homeland.

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♪ Ooh hoo ♪

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♪ Ooh hoo ♪

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Frida\'s body inspired the painter.

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And the young woman borrowed his love

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for depicting the people.

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[chimes chiming]

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In \"The Bus\" she featured

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the different classes of Mexican society.

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In the center, a woman breastfeeding her baby.

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This seemingly gentle image is misleading,

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because Frida\'s body was still raw.

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[tram bell ringing]

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And her damaged womb was unable

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to keep the child she was expecting.

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[solemn music]

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[tram crashing]

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We couldn\'t have children,

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and I wept over it, I was inconsolable.

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[birds squawking]

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[chimes chiming]

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[plane engine whirring]
[bright music]

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1930.

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Diego left to conquer the United States.

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The Mexican artist had been chosen to paint a fresco

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for the City Club of the San Francisco Stock Exchange.

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Diego painted in a frenzy,

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and discovered the joys of America.

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[shoes tapping]

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[upbeat music continues]

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Back home, Frida was bored.

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She began to understand her husband\'s long absences.

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Once again, she consoled herself

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with her paints and brushes,

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and entered a new phase in her body of work.

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In \"Portrait of Luther Burbank\", for the very first time,

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she didn\'t place her subject in a realistic setting,

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but instead set him in a constructed world

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where the elements are organically linked.

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The painting seems like a game of exquisite corpse,

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where death gives birth to life.

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[solemn music]
[plants rustling]

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[upbeat music]

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Diego\'s energy was catching,

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and Frida followed in his wake.

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The two artists crisscrossed the United States,

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as commissions poured in for Diego.

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In Detroit, the stronghold of the US automobile industry,

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Rivera painted 27 murals; some of them 14 meters long.

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The painter dug deep into his reserves of energy

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to pay a vibrant tribute to the city\'s industrial

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and agricultural heritage.

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[machinery knocking]

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[people shouting]

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But the murals met with controversy.

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[coins clanking]
[water plops]

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In an America hit by the Great Depression,

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the Communist painter was paid $20,000 for his work.

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[gentle downbeat music]
[money rustling]

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But Diego didn\'t care.

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He loved the States, its contradictions and its immensity.

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In Detroit, Frida focused on producing small paintings.

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In \"Self-portrait on the Borderline

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between Mexico and the United States\"

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Frida set herself between two worlds:

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that of Henry Ford and gray skyscrapers,

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and that of flowers and her roots

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in the homeland she was missing so much.

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I paint self-portraits because I\'m often alone,

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and because I\'m the person that I know the best.

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[solemn music]

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[water plopping]

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Detroit, July 4th, 1932.

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Frida believed until the last minute,

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but after three months of pregnancy, she had a miscarriage.

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Her dream of motherhood ended as a nightmare.

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[seedlings rustling]

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At the Henry Ford Hospital, Frida wept for her child,

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and for all those she would never have.

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She plastered her canvases with her sadness.

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She squarely addressed subjects still considered taboo:

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birth, losing a child, the pain of a miscarriage.

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She was unconsciously laying the foundations

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for a form of painting that would make her a feminist icon.

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Never has a woman so poetically

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retransformed her deeply felt agony

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and place it on canvas as Frida did.

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[downbeat jazz music]

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New-York, 1933.

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[people shouting]

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This time, Diego had gone too far.

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The fresco he had just painted

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for the billionaire, Nelson Rockefeller,

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was causing an uproar.

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Rivera had freely depicted the tyranny of capitalism

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on the walls of the Rockefeller Center.

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A worker controls some complex machinery,

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while wealthy society women play cards,

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and Leon Trotsky and Karl Marx,

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the leading figures in the artist\'s socialist ideal,

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make a surprise appearance.

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And the final touch, Lenin joining hands with workers

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of various colors and origins.

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Nelson Rockefeller was livid.

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He demanded that Rivera paint over the faces

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of these communist figures.

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[downbeat music]

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But the artist refused.

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He wanted to remain faithful to his political beliefs,

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and more importantly, not to disappoint Frida.

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The couple was expelled from the Rockefeller Center.

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After a few months, the fresco was plastered over

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and later dismantled.

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[buildings rumbling]

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[energetic music]
[man whistles]

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[fist thuds]

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[man crashing]

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[gun fires]

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Back in Mexico, the furious Diego

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was yet to come to terms with his dispute with Rockefeller.

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He set about reproducing his infamous fresco

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on the walls of Mexico City\'s Palace of Fine Arts.

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And this time, he featured Rockefeller drinking

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among wealthy parasites.

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Frida had learned of the affair between Diego

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and her sister, so she turned her attention

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to the man who represented

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her husband\'s revolutionary ideal: Leon Trotsky.

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[upbeat romantic music]

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Trotsky had been accorded political asylum in Mexico

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and had moved into Casa Azul,

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Frida\'s family home in Coyoacan.

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There, Frida began a passionate affair

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with the communist revolutionary.

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Frida\'s revenge had the odor of looseness and freedom.

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[ears whizz]

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[feelgood music]

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Frida and Diego began writing a new chapter

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in their life together, with no taboos, no barriers,

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and stretching further still the limits

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of political correctness.

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Frida drank, smoked, and made love with men and women.

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Diego, as always, added to his conquests.

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But three years of jealousy, debauchery,

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and blows below the belt, left him exhausted.

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[solemn music]
[paper ripping]

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On November 6th, 1939, the couple\'s divorce was pronounced.

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We had been married for 13 years,

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we still loved each other just as much,

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I simply wanted to be free to do as I pleased

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with all the women that pleased me.

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[scissors snipping]

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Frida metamorphosed, cut her hair,

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and asserted her masculine side.

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But she also renounced part of her own self.

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[chimes chiming]

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I feel broken and alone.

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I have the impression that nobody

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has ever suffered as I suffer.

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[gentle bright music]

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December 8th, 1940.

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Eleven months after their divorce,

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the two artists remarried.

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[flash whooshes]

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Their union seemed unbreakable.

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The second marriage is going well;

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fewer arguments, and a better mutual understanding.

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If my health were better, I could almost call myself happy.

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[birds chirping]

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1944.

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Her pain refused to subside.

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It exhausted her, but fed her too.

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[singing in foreign language]
[gentle upbeat music]

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Frida painted another self portrait, \"The Broken Column\".

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Here, she confronts her condition with dignity,

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standing tall, and yet,

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she also seems on the point of collapse.

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[singing in foreign language]
[gentle upbeat music]

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They thought I was a surrealist, but I wasn\'t.

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I never painted dreams, I painted my own reality.

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[singing in foreign language]
[gentle upbeat music]

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In 1950, Frida\'s pain reached

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a peak of atrocity.

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She underwent seven successive operations on her spine.

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Medication ate away at her,

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while alcohol brought out her demons.

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But Diego kept watch over her.

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[singing in foreign language]
[gentle upbeat music]

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April 1953.

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Frida could no longer stand,

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she had contracted gangrene in her right leg.

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It had to be amputated from the knee down.

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[singing in foreign language]
[gentle upbeat music]

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Feet, what do I need you for

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when I have wings to fly?

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I hope the exit is joyful, and I hope never to return.

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[singing in foreign language]
[gentle upbeat music]

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On July 13th, 1954,

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Frida passed away at her family home.

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She was 47.

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Through her work, she had never stopped celebrating life.

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[singing in foreign language]
[gentle upbeat music]

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\"Viva la Vida\" was her final message.

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[singing in foreign language]
[gentle upbeat music]

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Three years later,

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Diego died of a heart attack in his studio.

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His last painting was an echo of Frida\'s last.

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[singing in foreign language]
[gentle music]

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[whimsical music]