Directed by Julie Taymor, 2002, 123 minutes.

Nearing death, Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek) reflects on her life and art, particularly her relationship with left-wing muralist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina).

Julie Taymor directs a screenplay co-written by Kahlo biographer Hayden Herrera which seeks to uncover the roots of Kahlo’s intensely personal artistic idiom. Kahlo’s unique and compelling works are remarkably forthright and somatic. In her art flesh and biography fuse into a literal body of work and the face that stares back from Kahlo’s paintings challenges the viewer to understand or judge. Taymor and Herrera use the detail of Kahlo’s life to illuminate her work and keep the artist’s visceral imagery central to the film’s visual design.

The unique, sometimes unsettling vein of sexual imagery that colours Kahlo’s work and its parallels with religious art begin when she is seriously injured in a bus accident. Pierced by an iron bar, Kahlo suffered a terrible wound with disturbingly sexual connotations that left her unable to bear children. Kahlo’s work echoes the Mexican artistic tradition known as retablos or ex-voto. These semi-sacred works of folk-art show accidents, murders and martyrdom in colourful, explicit detail and act as a focus for personal devotion. In the film Kahlo’s wounding, with all its symbolic connotations is portrayed explicitly and Taymor displays Kahlo’s transfixed body coated in gold dust (a street artist on the bus with Kahlo is carrying gold-leaf) as if it were a gilded icon of martyrdom.

As the film progresses the medical effects of the accident (and the repercussions of inept or misguided medical care) also take their toll, adding to Frida’s artistic vocabulary. Frida Kahlo’s imagery is confrontational. When she miscarries, we see her painting the foetus as a still life, face set as she works out the pain within. Emotional or spiritual pain is exorcised, manifested as painted stigmata. Taymor shows us the physical torture of Kahlo’s medical condition and its treatment to help us to understand her art. To modern eyes Kahlo’s treatment seems rather extreme. The suspension rigs, body-casts and surgical corsetry seem more like bizarre fetish props than medical equipment. Taymor subverts the apparent vulnerability of the artist’s body by emphasising Kahlo’s remarkable spiritual resilience and her mordant sense of black humour. Salma Hayek’s robust performance ensures that the viewer doesn’t regard Kahlo as sainted martyr or passive victim.

Death is a central theme in Kahlo’s work and resonates throughout Mexican culture, personified as La Pelona (literally ‘the bald one’) who haunts Frida throughout the film. The sepulchral trappings of the Day of the Dead festival are never far away. As Kahlo’s emotional crises reach a critical point Death, in the form of an old woman serenades the artist as they share a glass of mescal. This scene is made even more powerful by the fact that La Pelona is played by nonagenarian singer Chavela Vargas. Her grim, powerful performance of “La Llorona” reminds us that this camp Mariachi band cliché is, in fact a song about sexual betrayal and infanticide. When Frida mordantly describes her body as “Judas” she does so in the sense of betrayer but also in reference to the Mexican “judas” (a large papier-mâché skeleton) which is a regular feature of Kahlo’s paintings, most memorably in her painting ‘The Dream (The Bed)’ (1940) which features in the closing credits.

Kahlo’s tortuous relationship with revolutionary artist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina) features prominently in her art. Rivera was a serial adulterer, congenitally unable to remain faithful to any woman. Kahlo was actively bisexual and engaged in many affairs, most notoriously with Leon Trotsky (Geoffrey Rush); her tango with artist Tina Modotti (Ashley Judd) is shamelessly erotic and joyfully sensual. Despite their sexual adventures Kahlo and Rivera remain drawn to each other, and, although divorced they eventually remarried. Rivera remained with Kahlo to the end of her life and was profoundly affected by her death. Guilty of physical as well as emotional violence, he is prettified by Molina’s sympathetic performance which emphasises Rivera’s charm and his appetite for life in an attempt to explain why Frida (and many other women) found this arrogant, batrachian artist so attractive.

Taymor develops the eclectic and experimental approach that she began in ‘Titus’ (1999). She is always willing to present information in purely visual language and when the theme suits, to forgo realism altogether. The medical aftermath of Kahlo’s accident is animated by the Brothers Quay as a flickering nightmare of raw flesh and dancing skeletons. Sometimes Frida emerges from her own paintings, crossing the barrier between painted image and live action. A startling montage illustrates Kahlo and Rivera’s arrival in the United States and in one of the film’s boldest and funniest sequences Rivera is seen astride the Empire State Building as King Kong. Elliot Goldenthal’s musical score complements Taymor’s visuals perfectly. He has immersed himself in Mexico’s eclectic musical heritage, incorporates folk tune and period themes alongside his own orchestrations. Mexican divas Lila Downs and Chavela Vargas (who knew Kahlo) appear in the film and contribute powerful vocal performances.

Kahlo’s persona was a self-conscious artistic statement. Taymor illustrates this with colour, often highlighting Kahlo’s vivid peasant style in a grey or sepia frame. Colour has been extensively manipulated throughout using digital colour correction, a technique that Taymor deploys with a painter’s eye. As in ‘Titus’ (1999) she uses a mixture of formal composition and hand-held or Steadicam shots to lend immediacy. Although Salma Hayek is obviously committed to the project and contributes a fine performance, she is not quite androgynous enough to capture Frida. The trademark brow and moustache were, apparently less marked in real life than they were in Kahlo’s self-portraits, but Hayek lacks Kahlo’s more severe, masculine aspect. The screenplay benefits from the insight of Kahlo’s biographer Hayden Herrera but the dialogue occasionally lapses into soap opera cliché and lines like “I should have been there for you” break the sense of period evoked by immaculate production design.

Politics dominated the nineteen thirties art-scene. It is difficult to separate Rivera’s art from the clash between fascism and communism that defined this era. Taymor emphasises that Kahlo’s art was much more internalised than Rivera’s work, but politics inevitably coloured her work. Frida remained politically engaged throughout her life. In her later years she idolised Communist demagogues like Mao and Stalin in paintings like “Frida and Stalin”. Extremism was endemic (and perhaps understandable) given the turbulence of this era but to the modern eye such idealisation of political figures seems strange and slightly naïve. Taymor seems worried that too much politics will drown the film or that aspects of Frida’s political life will alienate the modern viewer. A more assured engagement with the politics of this period; and with Kahlo’s own political life would have given the film a sharper edge. Interested viewers should seek out Tim Robbin’s “The Cradle Will Rock” (1999) which dramatizes Rivera’s clash with Rockefeller (Kahlo appears as a minor figure) and places the incident within the wider political context of social unrest in the United States.

‘Frida’ is a celebration of Kahlo’s art rather than a critical biography. The cast and crew’s emotional commitment to the project shines through. Julie Taymor may knock some of the rough edges off her characters, but she succeeds in penetrating the emotional core of Kahlo’s art. She brings Frida’s unique, haunting imagery to life and encourages the viewer to investigate this unique artist’s life and work further.

Quotes:

“Her work is acid and tender, hard as steel and fine as a butterfly’s wing, lovable as a smile and cruel as the bitterness of life…I don’t believe that ever before has a woman put such agonised poetry on canvas… ”, Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina)

“There have been two big accidents in my life, Diego. The trolley, and you. You are by far the worst.” Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek)

Connections

Film

‘Santa Sangre’ directed by Alejandro Jodorowsky (1989)

‘Carrington’ directed by Christopher Hampton (1995)

‘Love is the Devil’ directed by John Maybury (1998)

‘The Cradle will Rock’ directed by Tim Robbins (1999)

‘Titus’ directed by Julie Taymor (2000)

‘Sylvia’ directed by Christine Jeffs (2003)

‘Klimt’ directed by Raoul Ruiz (2006)

Reading

Hayden Herrera, Frida: The Biography of Frida Kahlo, Bloomsbury, 2003, ISBN 0747566135 (orig. pub. US. 1983)

Frida Kahlo, The Diary of Frida Kahlo, Bloomsbury, 1998, ISBN: 0747540977 (translation and commentary by Sarah M. Lowe)

Sarah M Lowe, Frida Kahlo, Universe, 1991, ISBN 0876636075

Julie Taymor (et al), Frida: Bringing Frida Kahlo’s Life and Art to Film, Pocket Books, 2002, ISBN 0743468074

There is much material on Kahlo in print; this is not intended to be an exhaustive or recommended listing.

Music

‘Frida – music from the Motion Picture’, Deutsche Grammophon, 2002, 474150-2

Radio

BBC Radio 4: ‘In Our Time’ 9th July 2015 – Frida Kahlo