Frida

Synopsis: Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek) was born in Mexico in 1907, one of four daughters, to a Hungarian Jewish father and a mother of Spanish and Mexican Indian descent. She died in 1954 at the age of 47. We follow her life from just before she was involved in a bus accident in 1925 that caused horrific injuries, resulting in her living in constant pain for the rest of her life, her relationship with the Mexican artist Diego Rivera and the evolution of her painting style.

From the outset, I have to admit that I am one of those people that have been fascinated by Frida Kahlo's stark self-portrait that has graced a thousand fridge magnets and ten times as many postcards. This meant I had been looking forward to seeing Frida. I now take that back.

It's not that the film is particularly bad. It's proficient in so many ways. The art direction is worthy of Academy Award nomination. The cinematographer was born in Mexico, as well as the production designer and the art director, which explains the authentic look of the film. Julie Taymor achieves many bravura filmic sequences, including a dream sequence where Frida imagines Diego as King Kong, and a montage sequence designed to show the highlights of their first trip to America, a salute to Russian constructivist poster art. Salma Hayek is beautiful in the lead role. The sound track, which features an impressive duet sung by Caettano Velosa and Lila Downs, is possibly the main thread that holds the many disparate parts of this film together.

What it lacks is passion. Hayek, who was one of the producers, has spent many years attempting to bring this story to the screen and it feels disrespectful not to like the film. Yet, watching it I wondered why it took five credited writers as well as Edward Norton as a sixth uncredited writer to create the screenplay, and then for it still to fall so short of a fitting tribute to the life of this artist.

Were they seduced by the image of Kahlo rather than allowing the existence of the shadow that was cast over so much of her life to hold centre stage? We should have been shocked, confronted, maybe even disgusted. We should have at least heard our hearts beating in our ears. And it should have been in Spanish. Then we might have seen something.

 

 

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