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 THE
WONDERFUL, TRAGIC LIFE OF FRIDA KAHLO
by Jed Ryan
Who
was Frida Kahlo? She most clearly identified as an artist.
Her highly stylized paintings, which were awash with symbolism
and personal meaning, are among the most highly valued pieces
of artwork in the world today. She's undisputedly the
most well-known Latin American female artist in history. She
was also a revolutionary, as well as a woman whose ideas,
from a woman's role in politics to sexual equality, were
way ahead of her time. Due to a bus accident at age
18, she spent her entire life in pain which ranged from tolerable
to severe, was sporadically hospitalized for months at a
time, and endured 32 surgeries, torturous corrective treatments
(including body casts and a steel corset), and even the amputation
of one of her legs. She died at age 47 (or 44; Her
actual year of birth is in dispute.), not too long after
she gained the praise in her native Mexico that she sought. In "Frida,"
the new, luxurious bio-pic of the titular artist starring
Salma Hayek, we see Kahlo's fascinating yet painful (physically
and emotionally) life, recreated with both meticulous attention
to historic detail and some eye-popping artistic stylizations
by director Julie Taymor.
By
now, everyone's heard how Madonna (who's a collector of
Kahlo's paintings and once stated that
anyone who didn't
like Kahlo's painting "My Birth" couldn't be
her friend) lobbied for the lead in a proposed Frida Kahlo
bio-pic.
Even Jennifer Lopez was mentioned. (I ain't sayin' another
word!) But thankfully for all of us, Salma Hayek won
the part, and she's perfectly cast in the difficult, multi-faceted
role of Frida Kahlo. Hayek was also one of the producers
of the film.
Early
in the movie, we meet the teenaged Frida Kahlo-- a wide-eyed
free spirit who's too wild for
her Mexican society's
expectations of its females. In an early act of rule
breaking, she dresses in a man's suit and slicked back hair
for a family portrait-- which uneases her devout Catholic
mother yet amuses her father. Her father (incidentally,
a Hungarian-born Jew ), indeed, showed to be one of his daughter's
most important influences and ardent supporters. At one point
in "Frida," a weary adult Kahlo requests to know
from her dad, "Remind me what I wanted then." He
responds, "You wanted to be your own person." After
Frida's tragic accident (Her spinal column was broken in
three places, her right leg had 11 fractures, and her pelvis
was broken in three places.), she became bed bound, recovering
in a body cast. Yet it was at this time that her latent
desires to be a painter got the opportunity to arise-- again,
at the suggestion of her father. It was her painting
that gave her a new identity and a way to escape the painful
events of her life that laid ahead. Overcoming the
odds, Kahlo learned to walk again. As a neophyte artist,
Frida Kahlo met fellow painter Diego Rivera, who was significantly
older than she and, though married, had (to put it mildly)
a constantly wandering eye. As like-minded Marxists, their
relationship started out as friendship but progressed to
what has to be one of the most intense and unusual love stories
of the 20th century. We don't doubt for a minute that
these two renegades loved and cared for each other deeply,
but their brand of commitment was put to the test constantly,
almost always due to Rivera's sexual infidelity and, to a
lesser extent, Kahlo's affairs with both men and women. (Although
one could argue that Kahlo's infidelities were only a response
to her husband's) Rivera had an affair with Kahlo's sister,
which is depicted in "Frida" as being one of the
most devastating emotional incidents in Kahlo's life. Kahlo,
in turn, had an affair with exiled Soviet activist Leon
Trotsky (played by Geoffrey Rush) while he was Kahlo and
Rivera's
houseguest. Other highlights of Frida Kahlo's life are
depicted in "Frida": the highs (visits to New
York and Paris) as well as the lows (three failed pregnancies,
persistently
deteriorating health, and even a brief stay in prison).
Not
many actors could play a character who's a severely overweight,
shameless womanizer and manage to exude sex appeal, and
for that, Alfred Molina-- who plays Diego Rivera-- gets
a lot
of credit. Sexy Antonio Banderas pops up in a cameo,
and Valeria Golino has some great moments as Rivera's long-suffering
first wife Lupe Marin, who ironically winds up becoming Kahlo's
good friend. In one of "Frida"'s sexiest
scenes, Hayek gets to do the tango at a party with Ashley
Judd, who plays Kahlo's photographer friend Tina Modotti.
It's enough to get BOTH the gents and the ladies heated
up. Frida Kahlo was obviously a sexually liberated lady,
most
likely imbibed with the same passion and desire that she
exhibited in her artwork. While her attractions to older
men like her husband and Trotsky can be a bit hard to swallow
(Could it have been something of an unresolved Electra complex?),
one of the movie's most passionate love scenes comes when
Kahlo, in Paris, has a romantic interlude with a Josephine
Baker-like chanteuse. Overall, "Frida" is gorgeously
shot, well-acted, and both sadly provocative yet uplifting
and inspirational. A work of art! And it's in theaters
now! Call 777-FILM or log onto www.Moviefone.com.
Salma
Hayek's "Frida" actually
wasn't the first bio-pic of Frida Kahlo's life. There's
another film, also called "Frida," released
in 1984. This
Mexican film shows Kahlo's life in a differently perspective:
From her deathbed, Kahlo remembers her own life in flashbacks.
Amazingly short on dialogue (which is fortunate if you
don't like
reading subtitles) and less slick than Julie Taymor's film,
this
movie version of Kahlo's life is remarkably similar, biography-wise,
to the current version.. and it's highly stylized in its
own way. It's all here: Kahlo's agonizing pain, Rivera's
infidelity, the couple's political endeavors, Leon Trotsky,
and Kahlo's lesbian proclivities. This version also
makes good use of Kahlo's artwork. If you're a Frida Kahlo
admirer like myself, you can purchase this "Frida" (1984)
on video at TLA
Video. It's $26.99,
in Spanish with English subtitles.
Frida
Kahlo died far too early. Should
we feel sorry for her? Remarkably, after watching Salma
Hayek's performance in "Frida" and learning what
I could about the artist, I came to realize that--
by all available accounts-- Frida Kahlo rarely or never felt
sorry for herself. She
didn't view herself as a victim. Kahlo wouldn't be human
if she didn't experience the physical and emotional pain
that we all undergo in life at some point. And Kahlo
had FAR more than her share-- one could only speculate how
any of us would handle such situations. Kahlo channeled
her feelings into her artwork. She painted her interpretation
of her birth (In "My Birth," she depicts herself
coming out of her mother's womb as an adult.) and continued
painting her own life until she died. Her artwork
was self-revelatory and, because much of it was reflective
of her assorted physical problems, the images of blood,
death, internal organs, skeletons, and symbols of suffering
were
present in many of her paintings. She painted images of
her accident, her turbulent marriage, and her miscarriages. Kahlo
was also known for her self-portraits: She painted 70 of
them, each one reflective of the phase and emotional state
that she was at in life. In her most famous painting, "The
Two Fridas," two images of herself (the loved Frida,
and the unloved Frida) hold hands. Kahlo's life could be
chronicled in her paintings. In fact, TV's Bravo aired
an hour-long profile of Frida Kahlo a while back which did
just that: through Kahlo's paintings and still photos of
Kahlo and Rivera, we learn about the artist almost entirely
through her artwork. Frida Kahlo, by all accounts,
relied on a wicked sense of humor (Hayek states in "Frida": "Right
now I'm a burden.. but I hope to be self-sufficient cripple
one day.") and an unyielding strong will to live and
love. When she realized that she couldn't have children
(Her accident rendered her unable to carry a child to term.),
she adopted many animals (including monkeys) for extra companionship. Frida
Kahlo is a testament to the fact that we can use artistic
expression to help us overcome-- and survive-- the most difficult
life challenges that we may face. In the end, Frida
Kahlo may have been a victim of poor health and emotional
suffering. But you can bet that wherever she is now,
she's got a paintbrush and easel in hand, and is painting
her take on all the current interest in her life.
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