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From the studio
· Feature Commentary with Julie Taymor
· Feature Commentary with Elliot Goldenthal
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Customer Reviews
Salma Hayek, as Frida, is both tough and vulnerable, showing Frida's spontaneous, physical approach to life and her passionate dedication--to Diego, to her hard-edged paintings, and to communist philosophy. Alfred Molina, as Diego, a man who "belongs only to himself," is warm, funny, often protective, and utterly impossible as a husband. An established muralist with many commissions when he first meets her, he encourages her artistic goals, explaining, "I paint what I see--the world outside. You paint from your heart." Married, divorced, and later remarried, Frida and Diego, as we see them here, are both mutually supportive and mutually destructive.
Hayden Herrera's biography of Frida is the basis for the Clancy Sigal and Diane Lake screenplay, which emphasizes Frida's pain and her ways of dealing with it--through drink, her work, and through sex, with both women and men, including Leon Trotsky, in exile in Mexico. The settings from the 1920s and 1930s are brilliantly colorful--a bright blue house with a garden of peacocks, monkeys, and colored birds; the worksites of Rivera's passionate and brightly colored murals; and locations in Mexico City and New York. Lively Mexican music plays throughout, with new music (Elliot Goldenthall) inserted to unify scenes, the piano music being especially memorable. The cinematography (Roderigo Prieto) takes full advantage of the architecture and the color, which is enhanced by the vibrant clothing, jewelry, and hair adornments worn by Frida.
Director Julie Taymor features many of Frida's paintings, and some of Diego Rivera's murals throughout, using them to connect the artists' inner and outer worlds. On several occasions, however, there are jarring intrusions of cartoons and nightmares--people walk through a photograph, which shifts to black and white; King Kong in a film morphs into Diego Rivera; a trip to New York becomes a walk through travel brochures. Unfortunately, the style of these vignettes is so unexpected and foreign to the tone of this film that they feel intrusive, even arch. Hayek and Molina are outstanding in conveying the torment of Frida and Diego Rivera, however, and the film, overall, is a fascinating study of two artists living through the tumult of history and each other. Mary Whipple
Frida is played exquisitely so as to truly convey the artists story, compassion, intelligence and great love and understanding of her own culture.
For me, Khalo's work is too often dismissed as quirky, troublesome and surreal. In this brilliantly worked film both director and leading lady work hard to connect the artisits life story, beliefs, passions and trauma's to her great body of work, with empathy and understanding.
The evolution of her art is sensitively juxtaposed agaisnt the major themes of her short life. Her work is seen for what it is, both competant and skillful and contextually rich with the courage to convey her emotional exploration of identity, belonging, dissapointment, greif, development and growth.
Frida is passionate and the film is so in tune with it's subject so as display Khalo the woman with great passion and sensitivity.
This film cleverly escapes the art world labels that have misrepresented Khalo, her art and her culture, for far too long.
The cinematography is stunning, particularly the surreal imagery which is so cleverly played as to ignite the stories richness and flavour in the way the paintings intended.
All I can say is how happy I am that I gave this film a chance.
Some scenes in this film are truly hearthbreaking, some terribly funny and some very beautiful indeed. This film really answers the good picture cliché: it makes you laugh and it makes you cry... you are transported into the world and mind of this amazing woman/artiste and in the end you have to step out of it again with immense reluctance. The directing by Julie Taymor was everything I was used to from her, a mix of artistic surrealism and emotional realism.
The acting deserves recognition as well as Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina and Geoffry Rush were all fantastic. Somewhere in the film I actually forgot I was watching these actors and felt like I was watching real people, which is a rare thing for me.
The music during the film and especially in the end was outstanding and just added to the realism of the time and place in which it all happened.
I give it five stars.
There is just nothing I didn't like about this film.
Absolutely worth it!
Music outstanding.
Acting excellent
Text very interesting.
Photography outstanding. Read more
A must see
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