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A biopic on the colorful and tormented life of Mexican surrealist artist Frida Kahlo (Salma
Hayek), Frida opens in 1925 with Frida as a voyeuristic schoolgirl snooping with friends on the illicit sexual pursuits of promiscuous mural artist Diego Rivera
(Alfredo Molina) and his nude model. A trolley crash finds the 18-year-old Frida impaled in the groin by a metal rod, her skull shattered in several places. In a
body cast, she is told she will never walk again. Her parents
gave her a special four poster bed with an easer propped before her and a mirror in the ceiling so she can paint with herself as model. This begins a life of agony and pain immortalized on canvas, a preoccupation that was to make a great artist of the spunky crippled girl. Through sheer determination Frida walks again and the first significant thing she does is present some of her paintings to Rivera, almost ordering the famous mural artist to give her a critique of her work. A volatile relationship borne of artistic passion and shared (left-wing) political ideals begins, eventually leading to the marriage between the womanizing mentor and his tempestuous pupil 21 years her junior.
Famous fro her Broadway productions of The Lion King and her daring
re-imaging in 1999 of the Shakespeare tragedy Titus, Frida director Julie Taymor weaves Kahlo's vivid paintings into the narrative and with creative filming techniques produces a stunning palette bursting with Mexico's spectacular colors and throbbing with Kahlo's intimate and primitive view of the world. Cinematography is beguiling, the musical score deserving of its Oscar (2003) trophy, and the script strengthens the characterization. Herself a Mexican, Hayek is born to play the tough yet vulnerable Frida, and the movieher tribute to the artists of her native landsimply shows that the Oscar nominated actress is capable of more challenging roles than what she was given in the past.
Due to the strictly-for-adults theme and elements of sex and nudity, Frida may be open
to wrong interpretations by a less sophisticated audience. Artist Rivera is an atheist, fueled in his art by overwhelming political biases, and thrives on
promiscuity. Artist Kahlo who marries him anyway despite her parents' protests, is eventually enraged by her husband's recklessness and hurls herself into casual sexual
tangles with both men and women.
Although the film does not judge Rivera's promiscuity or Kahlo's bisexuality, it nonetheless shows how devastating marital infidelity can be not only to the couple but to all other persons their sexual transgressions affect. In portraying the damage that adultery does to human beings, the film unequivocally shows that while artists may be "free" of concepts of traditional morality, this does not exempt them from suffering resulting from such "freedom".
(Date Reviewed: May 30, 2003)
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