...you can sense Salma Hayek’s passion for Frida Kahlo.
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Not too long ago, there were three competing Frida Kahlo projects in Hollywood. Madonna, Jennifer Lopez, and Salma Hayek all wanted to play the famed Mexican painter, and they all had different ideas about how to present Kahlo´s life as a motion picture. However, given Madonna´s commercial failures when it came to movies, no one wanted to spend money on a risky endeavor. Despite her commercial viability, Jennifer Lopez probably couldn´t convince the right people that she could be believable in a serious movie. Everything boiled down to Salma Hayek being the only one still clinging to the dream of making a Frida Kahlo production. Hayek´s dream became a reality when her "Frida" arrived in theatres late in 2002. The movie received numerous accolades, including six Oscar nominations. Hayek received a Best Actress nod, and the film won Oscars for its music score and for its makeup.
For the most part, I found "Frida" to be an engrossing but flawed work. There is so much energy jumping off of the screen that it feels invigorating watching it. Still, since Frida´s life was filled to the brim with excitement, my attention never wavered. I was drawn by the artist´s world, captivated by her parties and romantic affairs and tumultuous relationships with relatives, artists, and politicians. However, I never got the sense that I was entirely welcome in the film´s environment.
You see, most of the movie seems to consist of arguments between Frida Kahlo (Hayek, sporting a uni-brow but not much of a female mustache) and Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina) concerning the latter´s infidelity--despite the fact that Kahlo wanted to marry Rivera even after he admitted that he was incapable of marital fidelity. While this may have been true to the real-life Kahlo-Rivera union, it is an off-putting construct. How interesting is it to watch two people argue about the same issue over and over again? Besides, watching the actors berate each other for most of the film´s running time felt as inviting as witnessing a couple arguing loudly at a cocktail party.
In narrative terms, "Frida" feels like the Reader´s Digest version of the artist´s life rather than a textured, layered novel. There are four credited screenwriters, and it has been rumored that actor Edward Norton (Hayek´s real-life boyfriend) took a stab at re-writing the entire screenplay. There are seven credited executive producers, and there are seven credited producers. I imagine that all those contributive interests reduced the script to a "greatest hits" record of major events in Frida Kahlo´s life. You could say that "Frida" unfolds like an outline rather than a fully-formed story. The greatest casualty in the film may be Frida´s art itself as we´re not given a sense of how influential Frida has been in the grand scheme of things. After all, the movie´s too busy trying to touch base with the events in Frida´s life rather than with the reason for her fame.
The simplicity of the storytelling style doesn´t require much thought on the part of the viewer. All you have to do is to sit there and pay attention. Since you don´t have to connect ideas on your own and since the film doesn´t really challenge conventional wisdom and ideas, experiencing "Frida" can be a fairly passive way of spending your time. Unlike other biopics about artists, I wasn´t inspired by "Frida" to study painting like I was to study music and literature by "Amadeus" and "Shakespeare in Love".
Well, I´ve written about the film´s weaknesses, and I´d like to turn my attention to its strengths. First of all, director Julie Taymor did a great job infusing the film with a distinct visual style. Taymor is one of America´s leading stylists--she gave us a striking Broadway adaptation of Disney´s "The Lion King" and a visually complex rendition of Shakespeare´s "Titus Andronicus" ("Titus", starring Anthony Hopkins in the lead role). While reined in by a conventional screenplay, the director used a vibrant color scheme, a ghoulish puppet sequence, paintings that morph into live-action and vice versa, and even a Dadaist montage/collage (to depict Frida and Diego´s trip to New York City) in order to give viewers a sense of how busy a political-activist/artist could be during the early half of the Twentieth Century.
The performances are also very impressive. Salma Hayek dominates the movie despite her slight size; she displays the kind of screen presence that signals artistic ability rather than her usual "I´m a sexy girl" persona. Likewise, Alfred Molina manages to convey Diego Rivera´s rough charm and physicality without becoming cartoonish. Valeria Golino delivers a memorable and moving turn as one of Rivera´s divorced wives. Extended cameos by Ashley Judd, Geoffrey Rush (as Russian Communist Leon Trotsky), Edward Norton (as Nelson Rockefeller, the guy who commissioned a Rivera mural only to destroy it when Lenin´s face appeared in it), and Antonio Banderas add spice and pizzazz. When you have great actors playing not-so-big parts in a movie, you can elevate the richness of the material because the acting can be so dazzling.
The third key to the film´s success is its music. In fact, "Frida" is almost a musical since so many songs are sung on-screen as part of the diagetic action. Hayek herself belts out a tune during a bar scene, and Elliot Goldenthal´s colorful music score (which also won the composer a Golden Globe and a Golden Satellite) complements the film´s visuals very well. I´m the first to admit that I´m not very familiar with Latin-style music, but the soundtrack was accessible without sounding generic or stereotypical.
Video:
The smooth, clean 1.85:1 anamorphic widescreen video image is gorgeous. The filmmakers used a very colorful palette in order to reflect Frida Kahlo´s art, so the film bursts with bright hues. I didn´t see any shimmering or artifacting despite the use of a complex color scheme. Detail is extraordinary, and blacks are true and deep. This is about as good as shot-on-film motion pictures can look on DVD.
Audio:
Although "Frida" isn´t an action movie, it features a full, robust Dolby Digital 5.1 English audio track. During a bus accident sequence early in the film, the creative sound effects design immerses you in the middle of the action. The audio also does a great job if dispersing music throughout the room. Elliot Goldenthal´s score provides plenty of low-end response (though your windows never get to shake because there aren´t any bone-rattling explosions). The track re-produces music so well that, when Lila Downs sings during a party sequence, it feels like she´s singing at a party inside your room.
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