FRIDA (2024) - Mark Reviews Movies

Frida, Amazon MGM Studios

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Review by Mark Dujsik | March 14, 2024

Frida is a first-person kind of documentary about the life and work of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, who often put herself into her own paintings. This, according to an excerpt from one of the first-hand sources implemented by first-time director Carla Gutierrez, is because Kahlo was determined to paint only subjects she knew, and there was no better example of that than herself.

This pretty much encompasses the limitations of Gutierrez's approach, which is admirable for condensing Kahlo's 47 years of life only to the subject's own written thoughts on that life or to the words of those closest to her, namely husband and fellow artist Diego Rivera, as well as longtime friends. What more does Kahlo have to say about her art, other than the fact that it is highly personal, directly inspired by her own experiences, and reflects what she thinks of herself and how she sees herself within the world? There's not much.

Obviously, one could argue that Kahlo's work is so direct that not much more is required. Provide a little bit of biography, such as a bus accident that resulted in a handrail impaling her pelvis, and the story and meaning of her painting The Broken Column, which portrays a cutaway of the artist's bandaged and nailed body to reveal a stiff but cracked spine like a marble column, reveal themselves to be essentially self-explanatory.

Of course, hearing such details in Kahlo's own words, brought to vocal life by actor Fernanda Echevarría del Rivero, is much more thoughtful and immediate than such a bland description of that connection, and to be fair, Gutierrez is right to rely on her source as much as she does here. The director has access to written journals, hand-drawn diaries with works that might not have been seen by anyone outside of Kahlo's circle but scholars until now, archival film and photographs of Kahlo's life and travels, and the whole oeuvre of the artist's work to do with what the filmmaker will.

When it comes to the art, that description might become a little controversial, by the way. Gutierrez doesn't simply present the paintings. With a team of artists, the filmmaker portrays them as animated pieces, and while purists will undoubtedly scoff and be dismayed by such blasphemy against the medium, the effect is admittedly fascinating and as tastefully accomplished as such a thing could be.

Mostly, though, Gutierrez uses all of these materials for a straightforward biography, briefly describing Kahlo's childhood before arriving at that bus accident, which would leave her bedridden for months and with a medical diagnosis that seemed grim. It's at that point that Kahlo took up painting in earnest, if only because she had nothing else to do and no other preferred outlet for communicating the pain she felt in her body, the loneliness she felt being confined, and the uncertainty she held for her future.

It comes as little surprise to learn that Gutierrez's career until this point has been as an editor, because the flow and momentum of this biographical narrative are commendable. It doesn't cease from giving us some new detail of information, some different way of looking at Kahlo's art, or some insight about the woman's personal life. The way the filmmaker mixes mediums—from narration and handwriting, to that archival footage, to the assorted paintings and drawings—is commendable, too, not only in the way it keeps the movie visually diverse, but also in how it points toward the richness of Kahlo's thinking in a way the narrative itself might not achieve in showing.

All of this is ultimately a thin recounting of events. There's the accident. There's the continuation of Kahlo's painting on her own. There's her professional and personal relationship with Rivera, who would become her husband twice and after a divorce resulting from his many affairs (and his jealousy of Kahlo's occasional extramarital dalliances with men instead of women), and it's rather disappointing how much of this story feels more gossipy about the marriage, the assorted affairs, and how Kahlo ultimately reconciles her love for Rivera with his infidelity than anything else going on in her life.

The documentary does touch upon some of that. It references Kahlo's politics (ardently communist, even becoming a lover of Leon Trotsky upon his doomed arrival in Mexico), her mixed opinion of the United States after lengthy visits (Self-Portrait on the Border of Mexico and the United States pretty much sums that up), her distrust of art as an institution (embracing the label of Surrealism until meeting some Surrealist artists), and her long, unsuccessful struggles to become a mother (The already disturbing Henry Ford Hospital takes on an especially tragic air after learning the details of its origin). Such details, though, are handed out piecemeal and briefly explored, compared to the more sensational elements.

Basically, another perspective or set of perspectives, while going against the first-person account, might have opened up Frida and its primary subject to a deeper examination. From what we get here, it's apparent that Kahlo is a complex figure, existing during a revolutionary era for art and history, and a rich artist, whose work does go deeper than its surfaces and, perhaps, its autobiographical connection. This documentary hints at more, but with its narrow focus and narrative gimmick, the movie can only offer so much within its established rules.

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