This is the story of Frida Kahlo, a famous Mexican modernist known for her great painting and sexy monobrow. This is a gal who means many things to many people. An important artist, but also a feminist, a revolutionary, an unashamed bisexual. And you could probaly guess, since there’s a biography movie made out of her, that the poor gal had to be either alcoholic or disabled. In this case she was disabled, unpleasantly impaled in a bus accident, sporadically confined to a full body cast. But since she’s an artist she paints pretty butterflies on it.
You know Salma Hayek will get an oscar nomination for this, mainly because of the bodycast. I gotta be honest though, ’cause that’s my job. I don’t think she’s necessarily doing great work here. She’s just doing pretty good in a role that she is good for, that happens to be real Important because it’s a real person, who was a brilliant artist, who was disabled, and had some kind of political context to her life that can be simplified into movie form. I’m not saying Salma is bad, especially not compared to her embarassing improv role in TIMECODE. And I can’t think of anyone better for the role. But she didn’t exactly blow my mind either, especially not during the scenes where she wears a schoolgirl uniform and tries to pass for a teen.
But who the fuck cares about that shit. The strong woman I saw this movie for wasn’t Salma or Frida. It was actually the director, Julie Taymor. This gal is so talented I’m scared of her. If you’ve seen TITUS you know what I’m talking about. Or if you’ve seen the making of TITUS on the dvd. They show her during rehearsals. She knows all the dialogue, and substitues for actors that aren’t there. Even sitting on the sidelines she gets so into it she looks like she’s about to cry, or she starts singing how the music is gonna go. (more…)
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