Frida

At the end of Frida, the new film by Julie Taymor, the great Mexican muralist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina) says of his wife, the painter Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek), that "never before has a woman committed such agonised poetry to canvas". It's a fitting remark for a serial philanderer: one is reminded of Jonathan Miller's famously insulting compliment to Susan Sontag, that she was "the smartest woman in America". But it carries echoes of the filmmaker, too: Taymor's debut film, Titus, was a piece of agonised poetry which I consider to be one of the greatest films of the past 20 years, by woman or man. And, if she will excuse me for saying so, it is the best movie by a female director I've ever seen.

Frida, however, is much less successful. A lot of the blame has to be laid at the feet of the five different people responsible for writing the thing, including the author of the biography on which the film was based. The screenplay fails on every level, from wooden lines ("You were my comrade, but you were never my husband"), through characters who are introduced, never to reappear (Antonio Banderas as David Alfaro Siqueiros) and ultimately the lack of any kind of narrative structure or dramatic arc.

The two leads never transcend the writing to create vividly memorable three-dimensional characters; whether this is the fault of the actors, the director, or the script is difficult to say. When Rivera's ex-wife tells Kahlo that "it's hard to believe that he's had half the women in this room," she's right: it is hard to believe. And Salma Hayek, who produced the film as well as starring in it, seems to have spent so much energy getting the movie made that there was precious little left over for acting. Occasionally we will see a glint in her eye, a flash of strength and determination, but more often we simply don't understand what she's doing. What makes her fall in love with Rivera? Why does she tell him that she won't sleep with him as a prelude to sleeping with him? Why does she marry him, and, more puzzling still, why does she remarry him? The central problem of this film is that it is mainly a portrait of a relationship, and that relationship never really comes to life.

It would also seem that a director of Taymor's unbounded imagination is too constrained by the biopic format to do her talent justice. On the one hand, the fact that she's telling a real story prevents her from creating from whole cloth the kind of visually stunning worlds that brought her such acclaim in both Titus and The Lion King. On the other hand, her attempts to insert affective, allegorical sequences, with puppets or montage or paintings morphing into life, sit uneasily in what is otherwise a relatively straight-up chronological story.

Mundane considerations such as how to show the passage of time don't apply in a film like Titus, but here they're important: when Kahlo goes from having short hair in one scene to long hair the next, it looks like a continuity error rather than an indication that a year or more must have passed. And while Taymor has a couple of visually stunning tableaux (Kahlo, after her trolleybus accident, lying on the broken floor of the vehicle, covered in blood and gold dust; later, her plaster cast being removed from her torso, cracked open like a chrysalis to reveal her perfect, dust-covered breasts) they're occasional flashes of inspiration rather than definining every scene of the film like they did in Titus.

It's also sad that there's absolutely no indication of Kahlo's development as an artist. It's as though she received her gift from the gods at an early age: she's a fully-developed painter from the minute we see her pick up a brush. In fact, we learn more about Rivera as an artist than we do about Kahlo: the way he struggled with the contradictions of a communist painting murals for the national palace; how he sold out and crashed out in New York. When Kahlo goes to Paris, by contrast, we don't see her art once: all we see is her living the high life and seducing Josephine Baker.

Even the score, by Elliot Goldenthal (Mr Julie Taymor), shrinks like a violet exposed to the harsh Mexican sun: where Goldenthal was strong and to the fore in Titus, he's weak and backgrounded here. The one time you really notice the music is in the scene where Leon Trotsky (an utterly unconvincing Geoffrey Rush) arrives by motorcade and pulls up outside Kahlo's father's house. For some reason, Goldenthal picks this moment to unleash one of his post-minimalist Glass-Nyman pastiches: one assumes it symbolises the arrival of the European into Mexico, but it just seems out of place in practice.

Only praise, on the other hand, should go to the cinematographer, Rodrigo Prieto (Amores Perros). He slings the camera like a cowboy, but is completely in control the whole time, and gets stunning shots of both interiors and the Mexican landscape. I can't wait to see what he does with Curtis Hanson in 8 Mile.

Much as I'd love to, I can't recommend this film. There's a lot to like in it, and I know many boys and girls who are likely to go for the Frida Kahlo-Josephine Baker sex scene alone. But if it's a great biopic of a great artist you're looking for, I'd point you in the direction of Bird, instead. And if it's a great picture by a great artist you're looking for, stick to Titus.

Posted by Felix at 12:28 EST

Comments

Just saw this movie and really enjoyed it because it was relatively true to the facts. Biographical movies are a special category and not necessarily meant to dazzle or thrill. The critics panned "Bride of the Wind" but my wife and I thoroughly enjoyed it because we had just read the autobiographies that it was based on. No car cases or cartoons; just nicely filmed with lots of insider things going on in the background. These movies aren't intended for a general audience. They are for fellow fans.

Posted by: Alan Johnston at 16:31 EST, July 03, 2003

I MYSELF TRULY ENJOYED THIS MOVIE TO THE MOST. I WENT AND BROUGHT THE DVD MOVIE, THE SOUNDTRACK CD IS FASCINATING. I HEAR IT OVER AND OVER AGAIN. I LOVED THE PICTURE, COLOR, STORY, CLOTHES, IT WAS JUST WHAT I EXPECTED AND MORE. SALMA PLAYED THE PERFECT FRIDA AND ALSO MOLINA PLAYED THE PERFECT DIEGO. I MUST CONGRADUATLE TAYMOUR... I WAS AND AM VERY IMPRESSED...

Posted by: MARIE at 12:13 EST, September 01, 2003

Interesting. My previous post is missing.

Posted by: zip codes at 4:08 EST, September 06, 2003

it sounds to me like your just hating, because that movie is and was a great movie and great interpetation of her life.

Posted by: sherlock at 19:56 EST, February 14, 2004

i think the film was very inspiring, it shows how Frida persevered and never lost hop. she was optimisitc and a great mexican icom. salma portrayed her very well, i find it hard to criticise her at all.

Posted by: anne robinstone at 13:44 EST, November 07, 2004