FRIDA

salma hayek in this oscar nominee role depicts the life & times of the mexican painter frida kahlo 2 perfection. the direction with many scenes involving timelapse photography combined with the artful mix of paintings makes the film somewhat different. the english spoken with the typical mexican accent (with a very pronounced rrr, rrAA sounds like ffrrree-da for frida) was nice too.

the film starts in 1920s mexico showing frida as a fun-loving college girl who likes painting. a bus accident puts her in bed (with her body in a cast, she draws beautiful butterflies on it) for many weeks. she gets an ugly scar on her back and becomes partly cripple due to the spine injury. her boyfriend leaves her but she wants to start a life of her own, not wanting 2 be a burden to her parents. she gets acquainted with the gr8 painter diego rivera & they soon get married. diego is a super flirt & frida is his third wife. he repeatedly is disloyal to frida. frida too gets involved in many a romance, including with some women.

meanwhile, leon trotsky the gr8 russian thinker is in exile due to stalin & he comes to mexico seeking asylum. diego as his friend asks him to stay with him. chemistry works out between frida & trotsky for a brief period, bfo mrs. trotsky finds out whats goin' on.

diego paints in the US, courtesy the family of diehard capitalists, the rockefellers. diego being a communist, has lenin as part of his wall painting much 2 the furor of his american sponsors. when the couple's in the US, the art of frida gets noticed by the world. she visits france for sometime too. due 2 the freewheeling lifestyle of smoking & drinking combined with a carefree luv life, her health detoriates. she gets gangrene in her legs & loses her toes. her other body ailments soon puts her death.

the film has some controversy involved too (the events were true tho') like showing trotsky making love 2 frida. it also has Rockefeller Jr. ordering the wall painted by diego to be demolished. apart from this, the film's mixed with raunchy scenes all through. the dialogues too vary from subtle humor 2 witty cliches ("dad, whats the secret of your marriage?". "short memory, my girl") 2 filthy cursing.

think, all thats just fine as most of the lives of artists are supposed to be like that. a fine film, that.

25 Nov 2003