Palomares, Camille Kate S.

06

March

2014
HumaArt EB2
Frida
The movie entitled Frida is a 2002 biopic film that chronicled the life and works of the
renowned Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Quoting Kahlo herself, "I paint myself because I am so
often alone and because I am the subject I know best," the film was about how her tumultuous
life has influenced her works, many of which are self-portraits of one sort or another. Frida had
to endure after the two major accidents in her life: first, the tragic trolley accident she survived as
a teenager but left her suffering from lifelong health problem; second, her volatile and
dysfunctional marriage life with Diego Rivera. She used the enduring pain to fuel her painting
which expresses her dark and somber moods as well as the excitement she found in a life with
his husband Diego Rivera.
The interplay of slow motion sequence, macabre hallucinations, and imaginative
sequence scattered throughout the film makes its cinematography brilliant. It made it look like as
if Frida was one of her own paintings although her style varied from impressionist to surrealist
movements. The storyline was consistent as well, putting emphasis on and never straying from
the focus of the film is on pain, and rightfully so as that is the focus of Frida's work. Watching
the film one will learn that Frida Kahlo imbued her work with horrific images that were
expressive of the pain, both physical and emotional, she felt throughout most of her adult life.

Although the film does not suggest that without suffering in her life Frida's art would not
have been as influential as it is, but it leaves the spectators wondering if she would have needed
the canvas as an outlet without it.