| At the Movies - Frida-Light Now Available in Mexico |
The much awaited, much anticipated movie of the life of Frida Kahlo has made it to town. It has already been to two of the three theaters and is available in at least one video store and the rest should soon follow. The reviews locally have been very mixed, from glowing praise, to ambivalence to downright indignation. And as in all things, it is always easier to hate than to love and as tempting as it may be, I’ll try not to take the easy way out.
Frida Kahlo is one of Mexico’s most loved and well known artists. If you know nothing of Kahlo, the film will do little more to educate you than could one concise paragraph. If you know a lot about Kahlo, you should find the film sufficiently factually accurate. So then what remains but the question of expropriation? Not a new dilemma in the arts by any means, but an interesting juxtaposition when the subject is Frida Kahlo. “Frida” is an American film, in English, about an important Mexican artist who had little love for America. When an outsider looks in and retells a story about someone else and someone else’s culture, it usually creates an emotional response. Many would argue that outsiders should not portray people or cultures they can never hope to understand natively. The artist’s defense has been that if artists are only allowed to portray themselves and their own cultures, all art would be reduced to self portraiture. Hence the irony with the subject of Frida Kahlo, she is an artist known almost exclusively for self-portraiture. But accepting that artists will continue to re-appropriate other’s cultures and audiences will continue to allow the “suspension of disbelief” so necessary in believing someone speaking English with a thick accent is just as good as speaking in their native tongue—it still sometimes goes too far.
Hollywood has been making WWII movies for half a century now, with American actors affecting accents, and although there have been occasional slight and occasional glaring awkwardness in these attempts, the audience has accepted it and went on with the story. But in this instance it seems an almost impossible barrier. When such a big Mexican story is told by such big Mexican and/or Spanish speaking actors in such a small way, it begs the question.
Well, it begs many questions... Such as, how could a film about two of Mexico’s greatest painters be so little about art? It is all emotion and no technique. We see them painting but all they really want to do is have sex, or get drunk and fight. I can only hope it will inspire a Mexican filmmaker to reclaim the story and try to improve on it. But melodramatic leanings toward soap opera criticism aside, it wasn’t a complete waste of 25 pesos. There were times the arty effects worked and contributed to the tale, other times they seemed jarring and far reaching. The scenery and settings were pretty (it was Mexico after all). And gives a basic introduction to the turbulence of the time in Mexico, in politics as well as political art, and the costumes exotic and lush enough to inspire fashion (be on the look out for even more women wearing chunky gems, bright colors and braiding their hair.) Par for the big budget American film, it was pretty but without much substance (yes, even tragedy can be insubstantial.)
Perhaps that is merely the cost of the transition from biography to legend. Legends are always the over simplified versions of a life, the big and bold parts, the rest gets lost in the small type of scholarly journals. And the life of Frida Kahlo does have all the stuff of legend, it was big and bold and colorful with lots of tragedy. I don’t think it was fair to reduce her life to a tragic melodramatic love story, I think she was better than that. But that is the cost of immortality I guess, not being able to choose how history will judge you or who will be allowed to tell your tale.
And on the purely petty level: Salma Hayek doesn’t know how to smoke a cigarette. And what was with all the bizarre, exaggerated, emaciated women? They were just scary with their clothes hanging off them like skin. Maybe it was some strange wide angle lens trick but really there were at least three characters that were distracting-ly bizarre-ly bony. Possibly it was some reference to the calaveras, the gaily dressed skeletons of Mexican tradition, but probably that is hoping too much. Of course go see it, it has been too anticipated to miss and maybe you’ll even love it, enough already have. But as for me, all it inspired was the fleeting thought, “Hmm, maybe if would be cool to have a pet monkey.”
January 2003
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