Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Frida

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Posted by Gerard S. Cohen (Member # 994) on 11-12-2002, 11:06 PM:

Presented at the Cinemart in Forest Hills, New York City. The theatre has grown into a single floor multiplex, with office space being renovated above, transforming the block into an attractive,upscale area from what had been a street of empty stores.

The comfortable auditorium of about 300 seats was about two-thirds full, mostly seniors and middle-agers, with a few young couples with infants that were silent throughout, probably asleep. The screen image was spotless, brightly and evenly lighted, and the sound was well balanced between voices, music and effects, with many small surround speakers mounted on stand-offs from both side walls. I noted only four sets of cue marks and no splices. There were no advertising slides, nor any presentation, concession or other snipes, and only two trailers, unblemished.

The film presentd Frida Khalo's life as a passionate, accident-crippled artist and wife of Diego Rivera, womanizing Mexican muralist.
The combination of beautiful Hispanic faces, bodies (nude and exquisitely costumed), colors both saturated and earth-tones, and music expressing intense emotions through Flamenco, cante jondo, and 1920's jazz rhythms, made this film a work of beauty for me. Frida's agonizing life reflected in her intenseley personal paintings was presented by composing scenes that dissolved into her paintings, and vice-versa. Sometimes for me the use of black and white montages, like decoupage, seemed to me too artificial, though certainly "arty." Some surrealistic touches, such as clips of King Kong, with "beastly" Diego Rivera metamorphosing from the gorilla on the Empire State building, added an almost comic dimension.

While Frida's character and life were well enacted, I found the role of Leon Trotsky as written more shallow and less believable.

I wish I were able to understand the lyrics of the singing that provided such intensity to the dramatic scenes, and I almost longed
for titles. Sub-titles in Spanish might be a compromise, for the only English lyrics were during the end credits, accompanied by singing in English--which I found disappointing.

All in all, a memorable, sexy, and beautiful, dramatic film.

Posted by Charles Everett (Member # 889) on 11-25-2002, 11:59 AM:

Reading Cinemas, Manville NJ, 11/24, 2:35 PM matinee. Hall #7, attendance approx. 30. Picture quality good except for random dirt. Sound in SR with excellent clarity -- the speakers behind the screen must have been replaced recently. Occasional crackling in the surrounds -- a problem in this hall.

Miramax muscled Lions Gate off this picture. It was the Weinstein brothers [Razz]

who insisted on having Frida filmed in English. That's what got the Mexican critics pissed off. Why wasn't Frida filmed in Spanish? Xenophobia!

Also, Selma Hayek goes for her Academy Award -- "Play a Cripple, Win an Oscar". If she gets nominated it'll be because Miramax paid off AMPAS for her.

Other than that Frida was an adequate primer to an artist barely known in the States. The picture could have dwelled more on the Trotsky angle but the Weinstein brothers didn't want to stir up the pinheads. The King Kong sequence did provide a bit of comic relief in the middle.