Product Details

• Format: Color, NTSC
• Language: English
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Kultur Video
• VHS Release Date: March 20, 2001
• Run Time: 45 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B00005ASR0
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #398,794 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars ARTISTIC TRIUMPH OVER PAIN, August 21, 2001

By 

Bonita L. Davis - See all my reviews

This review is from: Great Women Artists - Frida Kahlo [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Hailed as one of Mexico's greatest artists, Frida Kahlo's works takes you into a world of the surreal, erotic, sensual and bizarre. During her life-time Frida was overshadowed by the works of her husband Diego Rivera, the great Mexican muralist but in time developed a devoted following of her own after her death. Kahlo was able to produce two hundred paintings during the course of her life in which the vast majority were self-potraits.

Born of a Hungarian-German Jewish immigrant father and a Spanish-Indian mother from Mexico in 1907, Frida emerged as a powerful and charismatic personality. Pain is a theme that dominated her paintings throughout her life time and it is through her pain that she emerged as an artist.

Kultur video takes us on a journey of exploration in showing us how Frida emerged as a painter with her own unique style. At the age of six she was assaulted by polio in her right leg but the worse was yet to come. While riding on a bus with her boy friend an accident occurred which would change her life. Impaled by an iron guard rail through her pelvis Frida was thought to be dead. This strong surviver refused the invitation of death and worked out her pain through deciding to paint. Her decision resulted in her life long quest of working out her pain through her self portraits.

Our narrator takes us on a chronilogical tour of Frida's paintings and experiments from 1925 to 1954. You see her early attempts of pencil sketches, stream of consciousness paintings, frescoes and her narrative pictures. Your eyes are assaulted with her bold use of color, her sexual depiction of lucious fruit that tells more then you see, and even Frida herself make herself into both male and female.

Ahead of her time,Frida gives rise to a feminism that refuses to be locked into the male artistic view of life. Through her eyes you see her woundedness, betrayal and tumultuous relationship in her marriage with Diego. Each brush stroke shows us the pain but arrives at the triumph of this great artist of our time.

Displayed in this video with an analysis of each of her works is her 1940 Self-Portrait With Cropped Hair which was painted in anger against Diego. Her 1932 Portrait of Luther Burbank shows her refining her unique style for portrature. Her 1945 painting entitled Without Hope shows her frustration with her deteriorating physical condition.

This video has done an excellent job in showing you the finest of this artist's work. She is inspiring but at times gazing at her works is just to much to bear. Your eyes may draw away but then end up being hypnotized by the work of Frida who draws you to her in death as well as life. Indulge yourself in meditating and reflecting over the message which Frida gives to you.

3.0 out of 5 stars Ahh I love Frida!, February 3, 2007

By 

C. Pearl (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Great Women Artists - Frida Kahlo [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I wanted to rate this 5 stars before I even saw it just because I love Frida so much. The main problem I had with this movie was the narrator. It was sooo irritating to hear him so heinously mispronounce so many names of people and places. And mispronounce differently at different times. It would have been really cool to hear at least a woman narrator and maybe even a Mexican Woman narrator. But at least the guy could have sounded like he looked over the script and confirmed the pronunciations. Ugh! It was really cool to see so many of her works of art and so many photos. Some photos and paintings that I had never seen before. Like I said, I love Frida! I just wish that I felt the narrator did too or at least respected her enough to know the script.