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chapter11 [ 5.0 ]
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Well-made but lazy biopic, with lots of standard-issue biopic filler, and nothing to set it apart from, well, anything else .. Salma Hayek's a lovely woman, yes - and any woman that can still say that about herself even while sporting a massive unibrow has to be _smokin'_ - but she was much better eye candy in "Desperado," and her performance here isn't nearly special enough to mark some huge turning point in her career (meaning, of course, that if you've never taken Salma Hayek seriously "Frida" isn't going to be the catalyst for a gigantic bout of re-thinking), and too many celebrities (Antonio Banderas, Ed Norton, Ashley Judd) are trotted out for too-short periods of time, and .. i think I'll just stop bothering with biopics. Effective as soon as I see "Ray."A
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JasonQ4 [ 8.0 ]
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A beautiful sight. Julie Taymor's portrayal of the life of Mexican painter Frida Kahlo breaks away from conventional biopics and occasionally enters what seems to be the inside of the artist's surreal mind. Still, the film doesn't seem much different from most biopics.
We follow Frida (Salma Hayek) through her youth with her wealthy, conservative, yet oddly tolerant family; on into early adulthood in which she suffers a major injury on a streetcar which impairs her health for the rest of her life; into her womanhood, including her open marriage to famed muralist Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina), her life of artistry, and her passionate political endeavours. The film ends shortly before her death in 1954, the same place it began - apparently, we find the entire thing has been a flashback.
Hayek is fine as the famed painter, but she fails to play such a complex character on more than one level. However, she does capture Kahlo's beauty, and does well when her character is acting passionately. Molina is also adequate as the repeatedly unfaithful husband - you almost believe him when he says that "[sex] doesn't mean anything!". The film is also peppered with rather small supporting roles, all performed well enough: Ashley Judd as Italian expatriate Tina Modotti, Antonio Banderas as rival Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siqueiros, Geoffrey Rush as the Russian exile Leon Trotsky, Edward Norton as greasy bourgeios American Nelson Rockefeller, and the exceptional Valeria Golino as Lupe Marin, Rivera's ex-wife.
Elliot Goldenthal's intriguing musical score plays over the absolutely gorgeous Art Direction and Set Direction by Bernardo Trujillo and Hannia Robledo, respectively. The film is a visual and audial cinematic triumph.
However, Taymor's direction straddles between avant-garde moviemaking and conventional melodrama. The screenplay, by a collaboration of writers, fails really to delve into the characters' inner-feelings, especially of the title character, despite the frequent, lively trips inside her mind. In short, we see in this film all that happened to Frida Kahlo in her life, and it's beautiful along the way, but most of us are still left knowing little about her true character other than her conventional descriptions as communist, lover, and painter.
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DokBrowne [ 5.0 ]
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Like a strange majority of biopics, "Frida"'s long on filler, short on capturing the essence of its centerpiece. More attention is payed to her relationship with Rivera than to her art, without which there would be no infamous Mexican painter about whom to tell any stories. That's like basing a movie on Houdini only leaving out all the magic stuff because it's actually about his lifelong stamp collecting hobby. Maybe Diego Rivera played a thematic part in Frida's work, but that isn't explored in detail. If you're like Ebert, you could just assume/intuit the connection between Diego and Frida on an artistic level based on the rather dry presentation of facts that this movie has to offer, but unlike him, you should know better than to confuse your own insightfulness with somebody else's utter lack thereof. This superficiality is compounded by scores of inane dialogue. There are so many verbal cliches and soggy sentiments that if Edward Norton really did re-writes on this, either he's a total retard in an edgy actor's clothing or, well, he'd still be an idiot if he saw the final draft of the movie and STILL wanted special credit for the script. Meanwhile, Julie Taymor's directorial flourishes (as in the animated surgery sequence, the movie's only notable moment and one of its very few attempts to creatively cross Frida's art with her life) are so few and far-between that they amount only to distractions. Salma Hayek, for her part, should sign her soul over to the Academy, because the Oscar nomination she received is about the most attention (of the positive kind) that she'll ever get. No offense to her; I enjoy seeing her in movies, and not just as a sex object, but if the accounts of her grueling devotion to bringing this movie project to life are in any small way true, then her so-called "best" is a huge disappointment. She does nothing as Frida Kahlo that you couldn't have seen her do just as melodramatically in one of the Mexican soap operas she came from. There's no nuance or real power to speak of, I'm sorry to say. Lastly, Antonio Banderas, Edward Norton, Ashley Judd, Geoffrey Rush? I respect all 4 of them; I have a huge crush on Banderas, I'm waiting for Norton to fulfill his potentional as one of this generation's finest actors, Judd's got range and can easily sell any part, and in only 7 years, Rush has created a handful of memorable characters (pirate, supervillain, Shakespearean oaf, piano prodigy, and the Marquis de Sade). Yet, while Banderas and Rush at least seem at ease in their parts, they're all just basically cast for a minute or two of screen time (in Norton's case, far less than that even) and asked to read lines. Doesn't seem right
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Stitch [ 8.5 ]
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A very beautifully made film with some very good performances, specifically by Salma Hayak and Alfred Molina. The film was directed by Julie Taymar who did The Lion King on Broadway and the film Titus a couple of years back. Her original, theatrical style comes through here as well to compliment very well with the Frida Kahlo's style of painting.
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| Weighted Rating | : 6.1 |
| No. Ratings | : 8 | |
| No. Reviews | : 6 | |
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