Frida

Frida; drama, USA / Canada / Mexico, 2002; D: Julie Taymor, S: Salma Hayek, Alfred Molina, Valeria Golino, Ashley Judd, Antonio Banderas, Edward Norton, Geoffrey Rush

Mexico in the 1 9 2 0s. Frida Kahlo is a young student who meets the notorious painter and ladies' man Diego Riviera in an auditorium where he is making a painting of a naked woman with whom he cheated his girlfriend with. In a traffic accident involving a crashed bus, Frida remains heavily injured and cannot walk. Only after a few operations did she manage to walk again and starts to paint. She marries Diego despite his affairs and goes with him to the US. The couple returns to Mexico and receives Trotsky, Stallin's dissident, who is murdered a short time later. With time, Frida's health deteriorates so she experienced her first gallery in her homeland in bed. 

Salma Hayek was rightfully nominated for several awards for the title role and her dream role of famous Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, yet the film isn't particularly inspiring, among others because, as it's mostly the case, the artistic achievements of the artists seem much more interesting than the life of the artist itself. Hayek was always a good actress, but it seems only with this role did she manage to compel the wider audience to see that, since she plays the heroine very naturally, not even shying of some erotic scenes, yet the story is revolving too much around her lover Diego Riviera, who "monopolizes" too much time for himself, while some of her private parts of life were marginalized. The film has good intentions and flows nicely, even though it's a too standard biopic with little new to offer in the genre, whereas the best moments are surreal: for instance, in the scene where Frida is watching the film "King Kong" and imagines Diego in the role of the giant ape; her hallucination of doctor-skeletons (stop-motion animation) or when her painting is crying through the paper.

Grade:++