| Russian premiere of "Frida" The film biography of the Mexican artist Frida Kahlo confirms the well-known idea: all artists of the New Age are a little conceptualists - even those who did not even know the word. Their fame and the value of their work - both symbolic and expressed in monetary terms - are determined not only (and sometimes not so much) by talent and skill, but also by the circumstances of the context - appearance, personality, biography, way of life and thought. Van Gogh is the most expensive artist, not because he is greater than Botticelli or Leonardo, but because the price of his paintings includes a severed ear, madness, and suicide. The same can be said about Frida: her paintings are not just temperamental surrealism of the Latin American variety. This is also polio suffered in childhood, and a catastrophe, as a result of which she spent half her life in bed, and marriage with Diego Rivera, and alcohol, and an army of lovers and mistresses, and much more. (The film talks about many things, but is silent about others. Well, for example, how could the creators ignore such a detail: after the break with Trotsky, Frida got a tattoo of Stalin on his chest in revenge?)
With such personal data, a Hollywood film adaptation of Kahlo’s life was a matter of time. The time came when Frida's big fan, actress Selma Hayek, convinced the producers to find $12 million for the film, persuaded Antonio Banderas, Ashley Judd, Geoffrey Rush and Edward Norton to play supporting roles (respectively Siqueiros, Tina Modotti, Leon Trotsky and Nelson Rockefeller) and found a suitable director in Julia Taymor, who attracted the attention of the star with the film adaptation of Shakespeare's Titus Andronicus with Anthony Hopkins.
The fashion for the art of Frida Kahlo came to Europe in the 80s. She was quickly turned into an icon of female suffering, replicated on refrigerator magnets. Taymor's film is close in aesthetics to the aforementioned magnet, but we must give her credit: she at least tried to move away from the canons of the traditional “biopic”. The film actively uses animation, collage techniques, and photo film techniques. Frida's canvases come to life in the frame, and the frames freeze, turning into pictorial masterpieces. Phrases from diaries and memoirs are translated into the language of images. For example, regarding the catastrophe that doomed her to constant pain, Frida wrote in her diary: “That day Death danced around my bed.” Taymor invited the famous American animators the Quay brothers, and they readily filmed the dance of death around a hospital bed. All this was done with a somewhat student-like diligence, but thanks for the attempt. Let’s not forget the magnificent work of Alfredo Molina (remember the mayor from “Chocolate”?) in the role of Rivera, and the fantastic singer Chavela Vargas, who, in her ninth decade, performs the fatal romance “You are my green hot pepper” live in front of the camera.
Overall, "Frida" is a high-calorie cultural product, after reading which you will be able to carry on a non-committal conversation about art and politics in Mexico in the 20s and 30s and tell entertaining stories about celebrities (at the level of "Van Gog cut off his ear, and Gaudi was hit by a tram." So, after watching “Frida”, you won’t spend two hours of your life completely in vain. Alexey MEDVEDEV |
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