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Frida (2002)
Frida Kahlo was a Mexican painter who struggled her whole life with great personal and physical pain. From this sprung a unique voice in painting that made her famous. The movie Frida attempts to show us her life but it gets stuck in the more mundane moments of her life, all too rarely breaking free with a moment of creativity and energy that matches her paintings. This is not surprising, as most biopics about creative people tend to have trouble showing us the brilliance that made this person special, instead giving blow by blow accounts of their lives that are frequently highlighted by conflicts, addictions and struggles with fame.
We first meet Frida at the end of her life, painfully making her way to the triumphant moment of her career, a one woman show of her work. It then flashes back to a much younger Frida, one who is a possessor of boundless energy and enthusiasm. Salma Hayek does a wonderful job of appearing far younger simply through this display of youthful exuberance. Without makeup it has the effect of stripping years from her face. But Frida is soon caught in a horrific bus accident that mangles her back and pelvis. She never truly recovers and spends much of her life confined to bed or wheelchair. Countless procedures do nothing to help and possibly worsen her condition. From this shattered body erupts a creative energy that made her into a famous artist. That boundless energy would tear her apart emotionally if she hadn't found an outlet in painting. Her works are startling and they are almost a visual descriptor of her pain.
She eventually walks again and ventures out to meet the legendary muralist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina). He is captivated by her and her talent and quickly takes her under his wing. They soon become lovers and then marry. They thrill to their lifestyle as marxist revolutionary artists, setting the political and artistic tone for their nation. Diego is a hopeless womanizer and despite Frida's supposed acceptance of this, they are frequently at war over his dalliances. The fact that Frida is no less promiscuous seems irrelevant for much of the film. Their relationship forms the backbone of the story and this is where problems erupt. Too often we get sidetracked into their squabbles, killing momentum and energy.
Performances in the film are strong. Molina is excellent as Diego. He bristles with confidence and charisma, making it entirely believable that this chubby figure could be such a successful womanizer. He is both charming and frustrating, noble and petty. Hayek does a solid job as well, proving herself a far better actor than might previously been suspected. She is at her best in moments of high emotion, either bursting with energy or smoldering in fury. A slew of high profile cameos like Edward Norton as Nelson Rockefeller, Ashley Judd as photographer Tina Modotti and Geoffrey Rush as Leon Trotsky add great depth and texture to the picture.
Director Julie Taymor's sophomore effort shows a bit more maturity but a lot less visual vibrance than her debut film Titus. This film has occasional flashes of the brilliance of her previous film but never sustains it. Great scenes like an animated dream sequence depicting the aftermath of Frida's horrible accident or another where Frida and Diego take a strange trip through New York that features Diego in a King Kong role are the highlights of the film. Obviously the entire picture couldn't be like this but certainly more of this creativity was needed. It is in these moments that we start to really know and appreciate the way that Kahlo used her pain to generate art. While the odd marriage between the two is certainly of interest, not enough time is spent on her art and far too much on the more pedestrian moments of her life.
Pain is clearly a dominant figure in Kahlo's life but the film often fails to remember this. There is a strange progression from the accident to leading a fairly normal life that shakes the viewer's belief in her pain. She spends a long time in a body cast but once freed it seems a series of fast jumps to first steps to walking with a cane to performing a sultry tango with another woman. After that we rarely see evidence of her pain, relying only on the regular reminders in dialogue to make us aware of it. Also rare are actual shots of her painting. While this may seem a blessing for a movie, consider the film Pollack which featured wonderful scenes of Jackson Pollack discovering and utilizing his famous drip technique. Here was a rare cinematic display of art in the making that lets us connect with the artist by knowing their work. Frida skips that in favor of dreamlike scenes that evolve into her paintings.
I feel bad for grumbling about the film. It is clearly the result of great passion for the subject and it features some wonderful direction and acting. What it lacks is a solid script to provide focus. As a result the final film is somewhat disjointed and disappointing.
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