Frida, directed by Julie Taymor and based on the biography of the same title by Hayden Herrera, is the story of a Mexican artist who not only was married to Diego Rivera (played by Alfred Molina) for more than twenty-five years but also was an artist in her own right. Similar to last year's Bride of the Wind, Frida Kahlo (played by Salma Hayek) is a Jewish girl who finds an artistic patron, marries him, and then ultimately has an exhibition of her own works of art. Frida's story, however, is far more tragic than that of Alma Mahler. As a schoolgirl, she has a crush on Rivera. One day in 1922, she is standing in a bus in México City that crashes, resulting in so many broken bones in her body that she is in a cast for months. While immobilized, she begins to paint. At first, her paintings are on her cast, but soon her father provides her with an easel and a canvas, and she begins to ease the pain in her body by focusing on her compositions, starting with portraits. After the cast is removed, she goes directly to Rivera in order to obtain his professional opinion on her art. Rivera is astonished with her talent, which is original and powerful, and soon they become artistic pals, lovers, and they get married. Rivera, however, is a notorious womanizer, having sex with his nude models, and a member of the Communist Party. Frida says that she does not mind as long as he is "loyal" to her. The film, however, becomes a mini-biopic of Rivera. When he receives a commission from to paint a mural at Rockefeller Center, for example, we see the famous scene in which Rivera's portrait of Lenin in his mural raises hackles with the press, and Nelson Rockefeller (played by Edward Norton) demands the removal of the portrait, ultimately firing Rivera in 1933 with the promised payment as his severance pay. Rivera then destroys the mural, loses commissions elsewhere in the United States, and the two return to México. (Rivera then reproduced the fresco for the Palace of Fine Arts in México City.) The relationship then sours. Rivera paints and has sex with Frida's sister, an act that Frida considers a breach of the "loyalty" pledge. Leon Trotsky (played by Geoffrey Rush), with a price on his head, obtains asylum in México in 1936, and Rivera persuades Frida's family to provide housing, as the Kahlo home is well protected from possible assassins. Fascinated by Frida, Trotsky has sex with her, but his wife Natalia (played by Margarita Sanz) insists on a new domicile, but alas one much less secure. (Trotsky died in 1940, assassinated by a member of the Communist Party of México under orders from Stalin.) Frida also has sex in the film with a woman. But Frida's health deteriorates. Although she has many operations to reset her bones, and her internal organs suffer from excessive consumption of alcohol and cigarettes, she neglects to tell her doctor about a greenish color in her toes until gangrene sets in, and they are removed. Next, braces are attached to her body, and later she is bedridden. But she continues painting, now putting the pain that she feels into surreal compositions. Rivera comes to her side, and in 1953 her paintings are finally placed on exhibition, to which she is carried in her bed, for a final triumphal scene. (Frida died in 1954, Rivera in 1957.) MH

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Frida
by Hayden Herrera