(rated R,118 mins.)
This movie of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo (Salma Hayek) comes as close as possible to the beauty of her fabulous paintings and tumultuous lifestyle. Director Julie “The Lion King” Taymor’s passion exudes through the screen’s visuals only surpassed by Hayek’s performance. The movie quickly launches into the trolley accident of 1925 that left Frida barely alive let alone ever expected to walk again. With nothing to do after months of bed rest, her parents (Roger Rees and Patricia Reyes Spindola) purchase a special easel with a mirror attached above the bed frame, so that she can begin self-portraits of her outer beauty. This is when the movie kicks in with the irony of Frida’s inner beauty as well. But the beauty of the struggle to deal with intense pain and heal is instead camouflaged by the drugs, booze and sexual dalliances while married to acclaimed artist husband Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina) and her affair with Leon Trotsky (Geoffrey Rush). Her death, occurring in 1954 at the age of 44 or 47, depending on the source, brought her to the forefront for her balance of imagination and determination in her artwork yet offset by her later-discovered antics in her personal life. So much so she became a one word named icon like Madonna. Frida’s story is a world of fights and make-ups, lovers and husband, whirlwind relationships of capitalist Nelson Rockefeller (Edward Norton), the photographer (Ashley Judd) and muralist David Siqueiros (Antonio Banderas), not to mention the parallel of her physically frail frame to that of her large proportioned husband’s. The movie’s Mexican flavor, with its pioneer feel emerge Frida into the compelling reflection of the country itself, making a strong statement. Hayek takes on the role with a feeling of responsibility (and if marketed properly out of the Miramax sole-art-house arena), that may earn her an Oscar nod. Besides, any woman who grows a uni-brow and a moustache for this bipolar, bisexual woman, deserves some attention. The movie’s double plug is the artwork meets the cinematic story.
