As the empress of painterly self-pity, Frida Kahlo strikes a chord with today's Me Generation (female branch) which, in the view of some of us mere males, is unwarranted.
Her morbid depictions of herself being operated upon, or glowering under her monobrow with the sacral weight of her innumerable wrongs, can be enjoyed perversely for the garish, cartoonish exaggerations that send them into the realm of fantasy. But put her beside the quieter, more intense art of a Gwen John and her hollowness is exposed. She was not very interested in anything except herself-- the Tijuana Tracey Emin of the Twenties.
This self-obsession-- resulting in steadily flatter, less absorbing pictures after her late 1930s spell in the USA-- is faithfully reflected in Julie Taymor's biopic and the one-note performance of its progenitor, Salma Hayek. The ladies are concerned with Kahlo's part-Mexican roots as a key to her choice of imagery (skeletons and skulls, finery which clothes decay) and with the turbulent politics of her time and nation, but only as picturesque backdrops. The movie combines "disease of the weak" tear-jerking for the ladies with touches of "love among the artists" salacity for the chaps.
The old Svengali/Trilby theme, and its customary trappings, is rehashed for the relationship of Kahlo and her on-off husband Diego Rivera at the heart of the story. Pushy prodigy gatecrashes famous artist's sanctum and insists he appraises her efforts, he approves, he seduces her, they fight, they drink, they mix with the local arty set and bohemians, both cheat, they have problems with patrons, they cannot live together or apart... Every "tempestuous relationship" cliché is there, no more justifiable for being largely true. But Taymor canters through them briskly, the photography is lustrous, the colour rich. Inaudible dialogue in Spanglish, confusion over who's who (Kahlo's relations as well as once-famous faces) and simplistic bits of exposition come with the territory. They can be pardoned; you go on watching.
Alfred Molina, often an over-solemn presence, manages to convey something of the irregularly communist passion of Rivera if not the babe-magnet aspect. Geoffrey Rush as Trotsky, seemingly condemned to be icepicked for having had a roll in the hay with Frida, is in and out in ten minutes. But Hayek has given herself a one-woman show, and it keeps coming back to this mostly sulky little person, who can spit and rage like Lupe Velez and whose bodily handicaps mysteriously abate when dancing a lesbian tango, climbing a pyramid or storming down a dark alley. In true disease-of-the-week fashion, her sicknesses do not deface her; she barely ages in the 30 years of the narrative, whereas Rivers suddenly loses most of his Mexican mop. (Frida's faint moustache is not for Hayek either.)
What we see little of, among the novelettish turns of the tale, is its raison d'etre: Kahlo's art. It is glimpsed chiefly in animated dream sequences to underline her Alps of an emotional temperature chart, as if accidentally to reinforce criticism of Kahlo's solipsistic limitations. Of Rivera's work we see almost nothing except for his abortive Rockefeller Center mural: he is there to validate Kahlo, to keep pleading to be taken back, and to tell her how good she is.
Art needs long periods of calm, quiet and reflection. This film is so anxious to supply fireworks that there is no room for the spaces in between, when Rivera and Kahlo were living in harmony and fostering creation by mutual devotion. Their quarter-century of partnership is reduced to fights and truces; their sexual lives to adulteries.
Her morbid depictions of herself being operated upon, or glowering under her monobrow with the sacral weight of her innumerable wrongs, can be enjoyed perversely for the garish, cartoonish exaggerations that send them into the realm of fantasy. But put her beside the quieter, more intense art of a Gwen John and her hollowness is exposed. She was not very interested in anything except herself-- the Tijuana Tracey Emin of the Twenties.
This self-obsession-- resulting in steadily flatter, less absorbing pictures after her late 1930s spell in the USA-- is faithfully reflected in Julie Taymor's biopic and the one-note performance of its progenitor, Salma Hayek. The ladies are concerned with Kahlo's part-Mexican roots as a key to her choice of imagery (skeletons and skulls, finery which clothes decay) and with the turbulent politics of her time and nation, but only as picturesque backdrops. The movie combines "disease of the weak" tear-jerking for the ladies with touches of "love among the artists" salacity for the chaps.
The old Svengali/Trilby theme, and its customary trappings, is rehashed for the relationship of Kahlo and her on-off husband Diego Rivera at the heart of the story. Pushy prodigy gatecrashes famous artist's sanctum and insists he appraises her efforts, he approves, he seduces her, they fight, they drink, they mix with the local arty set and bohemians, both cheat, they have problems with patrons, they cannot live together or apart... Every "tempestuous relationship" cliché is there, no more justifiable for being largely true. But Taymor canters through them briskly, the photography is lustrous, the colour rich. Inaudible dialogue in Spanglish, confusion over who's who (Kahlo's relations as well as once-famous faces) and simplistic bits of exposition come with the territory. They can be pardoned; you go on watching.
Alfred Molina, often an over-solemn presence, manages to convey something of the irregularly communist passion of Rivera if not the babe-magnet aspect. Geoffrey Rush as Trotsky, seemingly condemned to be icepicked for having had a roll in the hay with Frida, is in and out in ten minutes. But Hayek has given herself a one-woman show, and it keeps coming back to this mostly sulky little person, who can spit and rage like Lupe Velez and whose bodily handicaps mysteriously abate when dancing a lesbian tango, climbing a pyramid or storming down a dark alley. In true disease-of-the-week fashion, her sicknesses do not deface her; she barely ages in the 30 years of the narrative, whereas Rivers suddenly loses most of his Mexican mop. (Frida's faint moustache is not for Hayek either.)
What we see little of, among the novelettish turns of the tale, is its raison d'etre: Kahlo's art. It is glimpsed chiefly in animated dream sequences to underline her Alps of an emotional temperature chart, as if accidentally to reinforce criticism of Kahlo's solipsistic limitations. Of Rivera's work we see almost nothing except for his abortive Rockefeller Center mural: he is there to validate Kahlo, to keep pleading to be taken back, and to tell her how good she is.
Art needs long periods of calm, quiet and reflection. This film is so anxious to supply fireworks that there is no room for the spaces in between, when Rivera and Kahlo were living in harmony and fostering creation by mutual devotion. Their quarter-century of partnership is reduced to fights and truces; their sexual lives to adulteries.