Not only is there a monkey, there is also Leon Trotsky being played by Geoffrey Rush, which is such randomly bizarre casting that I have to acknowledge it. Aside from that oddity, the cast is fair. Alfred Molina dominates the movie as Diego Rivera, but Roger Rees (Frida’s father) and Mía Maestro (her sister) are also good. My personal dislike may be coloring my opinion of Hayek’s performance, but I didn’t think she was very exciting. I don’t know anything about Frida Kahlo, but surely she had… how do I put this?… a personality. Molina just blows Hayek off the screen, and whenever he's around, she doesn't act; she just reacts. The film ought to have been called Diego. Don't get me wrong: Hayek does a competent job, but her main acting technique is jutting out her chin to signify determination and strength
I thought the movie was pretty decent for about the first half, but you get the point after a while: Frida paints, she loves Rivera even though he cheats on her, she has a lot of physical pain. Oh, and she meets a lot of famous people, most of whom she sleeps with, kind of like a slutty Forrest Gump (seriously: there's a gratuitous interlude of her meeting Josephine Baker just to show them having sex). That’s the first half of the movie, and then the second half is basically a mirror of the first (albeit with more screen time for the monkey). It recounts Kahlo’s life without ever understanding it. Compare it to the other two reality-based movies I saw recently, Catch Me If You Can and The Pianist – both concentrate on a dramatic portion of the subject's life and bring it to life vibrantly. By contrast, Frida dutifully trots past the main signposts of Kahlo's life but never engages in any of them. You could get the same information – and the same emotional commitment – from a museum plaque.
I was surprised by Taymor’s direction. She’s learned restraint – or she’s taking Ritalin. She makes some lovely transitions between scenes, and her blending of Kahlo’s painting with real-life scenes is creative and gorgeous. However, her ars gratia artis impulse gets the better of her from time to time – she still throws too much stupidly artsy crap into a scene and doesn’t worry about whether or not it’s relevant to the film. But at least she does it only occasionally; in Titus, that was the whole damn movie.
Had it been made in Spanish, the movie might have had more success with awards, given the writing and directing Oscar nominations picked up by Talk to Her and Y Tu Mamá También. I’m sure it would have been a better film. Instead, Frida is just middle of the barrel.
(Frida
includes the same episode as Cradle
Will Rock about Diego Rivera’s destroying his mural – which
included
portraits of Lenin and Marx – in Nelson Rockefeller’s building rather
than
change it at Rockefeller’s request. Again, I think it is not
unreasonable
that Rockefeller would want the mural changed, but the event is painted
– so to speak – as the stodgy Establishment smothering artistic
freedom.
Am I just a capitalist running-dog philistine to believe that Rivera
was
a jerk hiding behind the mantle of creative expression?)
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