Customer Reviews

Frida Naturaleza Viva

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

For starters, this film won an Ariel, the Mexican equivilant of an Oscar in 1985. The story of Magdalena Carmen Frieda(she changed the spelling) Kahlo, better known as Frida Kahlo is brought to life on film by Ofelia Medina, who bears an uncanny resemblance, with perfection and touching authenticity. Frida could control certain circumstances of her life, like her birth date, which she changed from July 6 1907 to 1910 to conincide with the Mexican Revolution but others she could not, such as her her polio and terrible bus accident early in life that left her practically an invalid the rest of her life. This film shows both of these aspects of Frida, her revolutionary zeal for life and her misfortune. Often told in a series of montages, at times painfully slow, possibly to show just that, Frida's life is reflected upon going back and forth in time, her childhood, her tumultuous relationship with spouse and famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, her affairs with both men and women, including the exiled Russian Trotsy and Mexican muralist David Siquieros, her participation in social movements, her drug use and drinking, and of course, her art, her greatest gift, which she left for all the world to enjoy. The close ups of her art are used in most dramatic fashion, further illustrating her life. There is not much dialogue, the pictures and scenes tell the story quite well. The movie does an excellent job of telling a remarkable story of a physically tortured soul whose art showed the pain her short(47) life endured. This is a movie that is essential viewing for any admirers of Frida, without any fluff, this movie tells the story straight up. This a great movie as told by Mexicans not a slick Hollywood version. It helps to know about Frida prior to viewing as the details of her life make more sense that way. Frida Kahlo is a tremendous spirit and this film captures that undying, fighting spirit, of one of the greatest Mexican artists come to life, Frida Kahlo lives on.

Those who enjoyed the recent Hollywood version of Frida Kahlo's story may be disappointed by Mexican director Paul Leduc's 1984 film, as it makes few concessions to popular taste.

Slow, quiet, nearly wordless, it assumes that its audience is already familiar with Kahlo, and expects you to make some effort as a viewer. The timeline jumps around - the introduction explains that the scenes that follow are random memories flashing through Frida's mind during her final days. Nothing is explained. There are no dazzling special effects, and no famous (American) stars, though the great Mexican actress Ofelia Medina does a remarkable job in the title role, especially considering the lack of dialog.

I am not familiar with Leduc's other films, but his "Frida" struck me as beautiful, poetic, and faithful to the spirit of Kahlo's own work in its dreamy, surreal treatment and the intensity of its imagery. Given the fragmented narrative style, it holds together well and the scenes flow nicely into each other, and you do get a sense of her personality and the major events in her life; they are simply not presented in typical linear bio-pic form. For anyone familiar with early 20th century art, contemporary Mexican cinema, or the films of Raul Ruiz, Jacques Rivette, Peter Greenaway, et al, this is not a stretch and I would recommend it (along with Servando Gonzalez' amazing "Yanco" from 1961). But it is certainly an "art film," not aimed at mainstream audiences.

The Julie Taymor/Salma Hayek film had a completely different agenda - to present Frida to a large audience, most of whom were expected to know little or nothing about her or the Surrealist movement to which her work is related, to say nothing of the Marxist socio-political circles in which she moved. In a sense, the time was ripe for it. In the sixteen years between the two films, Kahlo was thoroughly romanticized and marketed as a pop culture icon. Fueled by Hayden Herrera's 1991 biography of Kahlo, the Cult of Frida spread beyond the artsy intelligencia, and the market was flooded with Frida posters, t-shirts, handbags, fridge magnets, and gear shift knobs. In the USA, the way was paved by the "Southwest Style" craze of the 80s (see also Georgia O'Keefe), and American audiences had been primed for romantic Latin American magical realism by the success of novelists such as Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende, and Laura Esquivel's hit novel/movie "Like Water for Chocolate". Even Madonna was threatening to make a Frida movie.

So...Matters of style and personal taste aside, Leduc's film was slightly ahead of its time. When it was first released and screened in art cinemas and film festivals, there was considerable excitement among people to whom Kahlo's story was already well known, and it was well received. But its lack of mass appeal is no surprise. What is astonishing, however, is how this film has nearly vanished in the wake of the newer one. I saw very few reviews of the newer film that even mentioned this one, even though Hayek herself has acknowledged Leduc's project and clearly borrowed from it.

This movie, if you consider that it was made in 1984, becomes quite an accomplishment: it breaks with the stereotype of Latinamerican movies of the times. It also conveys a lot about what Frida's life of suffering was like, and the degree to which she influenced Mexican culture. Watch it almost as a documentary of Frida's life, excellently played by Ofelia Medina (had a minor role more as landlady more recently in "Before Night Falls".)

Medina is a perfect choice as Frida Kahlo. Not only there is an uncanny physical resemblance, but her performance is superb, allowing us glimpses into the soul of this very complex and incredibly talented woman. The flow of the movie is fast enough to keep viewers interested, and it's script is deep enough to make the viewer review some previously held beliefs on things that range from sexuality to politics.

First of all, Frida was a very special person, with this film we can see clearly how is it that she had thought, felt and done to irridiate that great ingenious person she was and become suspended in time where it's very difficult to be forgotten. Today our Ofelia Medina can be considered her soulmate, because of the resemblance of her performance and her physical aspect the film is interesting, fast, and even though it has many periods, there is no need to continue many shots because of the clear scenes and the environment in which the actress is capable of feeling and transmiting. Thank you, for accepting my opinion, thankyou Ofe, for bringing up the image of a very special human beign, like Frida and for letting us know how special and caring you are for our Mexican roots.

Among the most transcendental and pyramidal tragic artists of the past century the name of Frida Kahlo evokes so many things. Her desperation, loneliness, bitter hopeless worked out as inspirational devices that wrought a character, a personal vision of the life an exceptional artistic legacy.

Here you have some of her most reflections:

Her birthday

What so I have laughed: they never knew what to do respect my birthday. Was she born on July 6, 1907? Or perhaps July 7 1910? I really enjoyed a lot watching them to discuss.

The accident

To remember... Some words loose its sense, it's true. One feels the necessity of turning back to think in what we had almost forgotten. What we have for life doesn't proceed from the memory, but the quotidian existence: the memory doesn't come me to the spirit as when one tries to find, holding to a past image to precise it through the time. My body is all the mistaken times.

Her son

He was like a huge spittle of water, gold and spume. After that I saw nothing more, the ground was white under my feet; the fear lacerations of thunder fragmentized my body, an absolute desolation, my flesh turned on fluid, it undertook a beforehand lost battle, a dislocation of the members, brutal, the chaotic disorganization of an unity, an opened body emptying itself of its life, giving the death, giving itself the death...

I keep you into myself as a wounded secret, now. I look around the silence that swallows me, the objects vanish themselves, my legs fail me. There's not reference point, no place in nowhere. I am that diffused stuff, the silence is into myself. Four white walls that transpire a smell like the ether, that contain a messy universe...

About love

My night knows that I would like to see you, to follow with my hands every curve of your body, to recognize your face and fondle it. My night drowns me of your absence... my body groans in silence its loneliness under the memory of you. My body would like to kiss you in its dream. I miss you so much. And your words. And your color...


These thoughts express by themselves the heart-breaking oppression and lacerating pain that surrounded her.

But even so, we never feel a self complaining attitude. These sorrows were -at the same time- the primordial pivots of her works, hovered by a beating, mysterious, distant and untamed beauty.

Her last words? A sentence from her diary: "I gladly hope the exit... and I hope not never get back"

I n memoriam.

Before watching this movie,..., I suggest reading "Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo", which accurately "reveals a woman of extreme magnetism and originality." This is, without a question, the worst movie I have seen in my entire life because of it's blatent ignorance of the actual people the production was trying to illustrate. It is as if the screenwriter read about Frida, and left out all of the important aspects of her personality! In an early scene, "young Frida" breathes hot air onto a window, and marks some obscure symbol. Shortly after, the scene ends. Taken from the book: "I must have been six years old when I experienced intensely an imaginary friendship with a little girl more or less the same age as me. On the glass window...I breathed vapor onto one of the first panes. I let out a breath and with a finger I drew a "door"...Full of great joy and urgency, I went out in my imganination, through this "door". I crossed the whole plain that I saw in front of me...and I went down in great haste into the interior of the earth, where "my imaginary friend" was always waiting for me. I do not remember her image or her color. But I do know she was [free in her choices]. She laughed a lot. Without sounds. She was agile and she danced as if she weighed nothing as all. I told her all my secret problems..from her voice she knew everything about me. When I returned to the window I entered through the same door...I was happy. I ran with my secret..Thirty-four years have passed since I experienced this friendship and every time that I remember it, it revives and becomes larger and larger inside my world." Just one example of one of her major life incidents swept over like a minor detail. After watching the 2002 version, I eagerly started reading the book to learn more about her tumultuous life, as I am aware biography movies have a tendency to leave out a lot of details one can only find by reading the actual book. When I saw the cover (on accident) at the video store, I figured, hey, it's in Spanish, and it's much older, so it might be interesting. I have never been so wrong in choosing a movie: The movie is very surreal and very abstract. There is little dialogue causing the spectator to become easily confused and mislead ... the imagery is pitiful; conveying no sense of the vibracy and exuberence that Frida so easily created with her persona, the acting can be seen as mediocre, if one pretends that the movie is about some random artist, and not about Frida Kahlo. I suppose I should have known better when renting this movie when I saw that the actress chosen to play Frida didn't even have a unibrow, and when I read that her affair with Leon Trotsky was one of the major events in her life. ...

Thinking about the impressive exhibition of Frida Kahlo paintings in London, it is good to remind this singular version of 1985.
The Mexican director Paul Leduc, made, by far, the best adaptation that I know about Frida. This artwork focuses with a major scope, the complex relationship between Kahlo, Rivera and Trotsky. The appropriate illumination was simply top-notch.
And the structure that support the script keeps maintain the whole interest along the film.
Highly recommended for all those who are really interested in knowing the insights of this true icon of the last Century.

The dreamy, montage format of this movie is hypnotic, giving you tastes and smells rather than narration. This is one movie where the soundtrack is an integral part of the story; it tells much more of the story (i think) tham the narration does. Easy to watch and rewatch and rewatch...

Horrible attempt at creating a collage. It ends up making no sense and having no chronology [which helps to understand a person's life/choices] I would recommend you see the newer version of the her life [2002]which though not perfect can be understood. This movie made me feel like the producer wanted to come up with something so original that he did...original garbage!