All  Things
 Video 

by Carol Lane Patterson 

FRIDA
Frida is a stylish, graphically innovative and artistic work of filmmakers intent on portraying the life of one of the world’s great contemporary artists. In a word—magnificent. During two short hours, the screenplay of her loves, losses and personal triumphs contribute to a film experience that floods our every sense. Color, music and superb acting, woven into a beautifully crafted celluloid matrix, allow the viewer an extremely satisfying glimpse of the human experience and the fundamentally unique contribution of the truly visionary personality.

Frida, the movie, and Frida Kahla’s art coalesce before our eyes, with an impact eclipsing the ensuing moments of our lives—for hours, even days thereafter. Her renderings are masterful painted depictions of the emotional canvas of her life and the broader human condition. Diego Rivera, her husband, painted epic quality murals of what he saw ‘on the outside.’ Frida painted the inner sanctums. Their admiration of each other’s talent drew them together in friendship and, ultimately, marriage. Their passions drove them in their creative process and in their private moments, as often spent with others as with each other. 

Frida explored the vastly uncharted social path few women have walked. Her coping mechanisms for her painful, finally debilitating, physical condition also visit her paintings. Her creative mapping of the psyche in stark, shockingly emotional, ‘thought’ groupings are broad strokes of raw sensation to which there is little respite. As the brain and heart seek references for Frida’s images, the resulting framework induced in the mind is a confusing jumble of surprise and acknowledgment. Thusly, the filmmakers were similarly affected and inspired to greatness. Frida unreels in a thoroughly tumultuous montage of cinematic storytelling, ‘just so’ graphical artistry and editing, as well as a perfectly executed musical score.

Salma Hayek plays Frida in what may be the zenith performance of her career, certainly guaranteeing her an Oscar nomination. Alfred Molina, dangerously portly for this role, will most certainly be in the running, too. Important cameos for Ashley Judd, Antonio Banderas, Edward Norton and Geoffrey Rush are gems. MiraMax distributed and produced with Handprint, Lions Gate, Trimark, and Ventanarosa; Julie Taymor directed this collaborative screenplay based on Hayden Herrera’s biographical book.

METAPHYSICAL OVERVIEW: Artists seek to communicate the intangible, as thoroughly as their talent allows—attempting a connection so basic that a commonality results. Their version of oral or visual communication may satisfy one or many needs. More often, their depictions simply bring forth yet unexplored thou. Thoughts and emotions of sufficient magnitude as to evoke a response wholly visceral in quality. When successful, they inject into the framework of our souls a profound reaction, soldering their artistic offering into our psyches. It is a consensual and therefore intimate exchange.

Certainly as notable is another film, based on a novel about an artist and her artistic daughter. WHITE OLEANDER, with Michele Pfeiffer and Alison Lohman, focuses attention on the deplorable state of our foster care system. The inhumane manner in which children are tossed about due to the rather haphazard methods of our harried and under-budgeted bureaucracy is explored. Warner Bros. distributed this Warner Bros. collaboration with Pandora Film production, Gaylord, John Wells, Oleandor Productions. 

Comedies are led by Brown Sugar, with Taye Diggs, Sanaa Lathan and Mos Def complemented by Nicole Ari Parker and Queen Latifah; distributed by Fox Searchlight, this Magic Johnson, Evergreen and Heller Highwater collaboration is entertaining and smart. Eddie Murphy and Owen Wilson deliver fast repartee in classic ‘buddy’ timing in a takeoff of the old ‘I Spy’ series. This ‘government agent’ I SPY is a Columbia/Sony/Tall Trees/C-2/Sheldon Leonard production, directed by Betty Thomas.