plainsong

I'm afraid this documentary about Nelly Mousset-Vos and Nadine Hwang may be geolocked for some, which is unfortunate because it's a moving watch.

We know why. Because they were women, in love.

Nelly & Nadine follows the granddaughter of Nelly Mousset-Vos, an opera singer born in 1906 who was a member of the resistance army for which she was imprisoned for 2 years in concentration camps, going through Mousset-Vos' effects and discovering/unearthing that her grandmother loved and lived with Nadine Hwang, a Chinese-Belgian daughter of a diplomat, whom Mousset-Vos met in the concentration camp at Ravensbrück.

Mousset-Vos left behind journal accounts of her experience in the camps, and photos and film of her life with Hwang in Caracas, Venezuela.

This was the moment I understood Hwang moved in the gayest of circles possible.

We hear Mousset-Vos's own words, the concentration camp portions heartbreaking to listen to, and see the documentation of their lives and life together. It's stunning and tender. Much of the film that exists was recorded by Nadine behind the camera.

The documentary tracks the present as much as the past and coming to recontextualize and understand the homosexual reality these women and their friends and peers lived--the love that dare not speak its name, truly, in that generation--and how this newfound knowledge and these women's resilience pay forward to inspiring and appreciating the greater visibility and acceptance/tolerance of today.

They were "cousins." They were "roommates."

Highly recommend if you have an available 90 minutes.

From Nadine Hwang's wikipedia entry:

Nadine Hwang, or Nadine Huong (Chinese 黃訥亭); (March 3, 1902 – 1972) was one of the first Chinese female pilots and served in the Chinese Air Force as an honorary colonel. She was at one point in a relationship with Natalie Clifford Barney and survived deportation to the Ravensbrück concentration camp. Nadine Hwang was born in Madrid, to a Belgian mother, Juliette Brouta-Gilliard, and a Chinese father, Lühe Hwang. Both her parents were Catholics. Hwang was baptised in June 1902 in Madrid, in the parish church of Nuestra Señora del Pilar. Her father, who came from an influential Chinese family, was a diplomat and high official. In 1904 he was briefly transferred to Havana, where in 1905 Hwang's sister Marcela (later known as Marcela de Juan) was born. A few months later, the whole family returned to Madrid, where Hwang's father had been appointed head of the Chinese delegation.

Grow up! They are all murderers and they aren’t human anymore ANYWAYS.

SO THIS IS WHY TVL'S EPISODES ARE NAMED AFTER CITIES??? OH ROLIN YOU GENIUS

Ok ok OK you guys probably do not have any idea who Italo Calvino was (best Italian writer of the last 100 years) who wrote this masterpiece (my favourite book) and watching Lestat throwing it at Daniel??? Rolin I'm at your doorstep. Lemme introduce you to:

"Le Città Invisibili"

The book is framed as a conversation between the Mongol emperor Kublai Khan, and Marco Polo. Now, Marco's name was as famous as a ROCK STAR of his era, his travel book (IL MILIONE) written while in prison a best seller. Italo wrote brief prose poems describing 55 fictitious cities that are narrated by Polo, many of which can be read as commentary on culture, language, time, MEMORY, DEATH, or THE ODYSSEY OF RECOLLECTION. Cities made of spiderwebs, sounds, abandoned cities, cities that look completely different when you enter its walls - you should read it. Short dialogues between Kublai and Polo (ALMOST LIKE AN INTERVIEW YOU MIGHT SAY) are interspersed every five to ten cities discussing the same topics. These interludes between the two characters are no less poetically constructed than the cities, and form a framing device that plays with the natural complexity of language, stories and LIES. Kublai also asks about a city Polo never mentioned, his hometown of Venice. Polo replies, "Every time I describe a city I am saying something about Venice." Now, we are listening to the voice of Lestat in his "failures" collection, which are like the chapters of his autobiography. As this wave from memories flows in, the city soaks it up like a sponge and expands. The episodes have been so far extremely hectic, hard to focus on, full of little lies and exaggerated scenes - seen through the main character's imaginative eyes. Cities, like dreams, are made of desires and fears, even if the thread of their discourse is secret, their rules are absurd, their perspectives deceitful, and everything conceals something else.

The ending is a warning against despairing:

"The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together."