Frida

As "Frida" (2024 release; 84 min.) opens, we are introduced to Frida Kahlo, a painter from Mexico from the early-to-mid 1900s. The documentary reminds us that she left a large legacy of writings including an illustrated diary and letters, and that all commentary we hear are Frida's own words. We then go back to "1910" to Frida's earliest years.... At this point we are 10 minutes into the movie.

Couple of comments: this movie is a labor of love from editor Carla Guttierez, making her directorial debut. With the help of several animators, Kahlo's life, works and times are presented on a grand and colorful scale. I was generally aware of who Frida Kahlo was, but didn't know many of the personal details that are brought forward in the documentary, including the devastating bus crash that she was involved in (in 1925), which had significant physical consequences the rest of her life. Part of the charm of this documentary is also looking back at what life was like in the 1920's-30's-40's. Check out the footage of when Friday and her husband (the renowned Mexican painter Diego Rivera) visit New York and Detroit in the early 1930's. Not to be picky, but couldn't Guttierez come up with a better film title than the generic "Frida"? That aside, I found this documentary thoroughly enjoyable (and, dare I say, educational) from start to finish.

"Frida" premiered at this year's Sundance film festival, to immediate critical acclaim. The movie is currently rated 905 Certified Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes, and for good reason. The movie started streaming on Amazon Prime Video 2 weeks ago, and I caught up with it last night. If you have any interest in arts, I'd readily suggest you check this out and draw your own conclusion.

I knew the artist Frida Kahlo and the pain she endured but I didn't know her as a human! This film/documentary completed my knowledge about this human artist person. I found so many thoughts that she had that agreed with mine and I started to feel a strong bond with her and her suffering. She was a true woman, no ifs or buts! She saw the world through a curtain of pain and suffering and few shiny openings available to her. I never had the wish and urge to own one of her paintings but now I feel it would be the greatest honour to own one which of course will never happen because her paintings demand top prices so I have to succumb to having only copies of her works in my home. Frida saw through the superficiality and frivolosity of vain humans and thoroughly hated them. I wonder if those sentiments only existed because of her suffering . In any way her pain gave us wondrous artworks as mirrors into her soul and show through colour and animation that not all of her sentiments were born of hate and despair and that there was always a glimmer of hope to her desolate existence which in her last years seemed to have completely resolved into nothingness and the wish to finally leave this hurting world and to die! I am an atheist ever since I was a child as she was and believe there is nothing after death not even blackness and we return back to the smallest particles of the universe to create something new in an infinite cycle of life and death! Frida Kahlo managed to make herself immortal through her paintings and that is something few of us will achieve ! RIP Frida Kahlo!

A current documentary airing on Prime about the famed Mexican painter Frida Kahlo. Using her own words from her writings, observations & even her own artwork to trace her beginnings as a young girl who fell into art, mostly doing portraits of herself, becoming the sole young woman in her art school attendance. Never gaining much traction w/her work & the public, she did find comradeship w/Diego Rivera, her vaulted fellow countryman who even put her in one of his murals. Seeing this newfound attention got her her own show but soon enough the lack of sales & the pretentiousness of the clientele made her long for home coupled w/the fact that her marriage to Rivera was on the rocks, made the decision an easy one especially since she was becoming gender fluid w/her bed partners while also going through numerous spine operations (due to a railcar accident she endured when she was younger). Never completely losing her will to recreate, she continued working even while confined to a wheelchair, to her final days where now she's become the iconoclast she may've secretly already knew she'd become since a biopic starring Salma Hayek (who got an Oscar nomination) was made 2 decades ago & she's becoming a visual icon (a nice use of her likeness appeared in Pixar's Coco) forever equating her art & homeland as intertwined.

Creating this kind of documentary must have been difficult. The years we are talking about are 1907 - 1954 so although there are some original film from those years it is not enough to make a full-length movie, however the directors here choose to almost verbatim read off Frida's diary which is surprisingly reach and spans over many years. Also photos and archives of the actual art and people that are involved. The outcome is mesmerizing and although I'm not a big fan of these kind of documentaries it was interesting enough for a 90 minutes watch.

This is not a kind of a movie that would be a block-buster hit. It is not a person that everyone knows, her life, although very bohemian and flamboyant is still confined to art lovers. And it is a documentary, not showing any actors at all, only real people voices or voice-over. Having said that, I did watch Frida Kahlo movie from 2002 in which she is portrayed by Salma Hayek, and I think this documentary is actually better, in a sense that you are getting what really happened and not a mere Holywoodic mirror of it.

One criticism I do have for this movie is the animation of Kahlo's paintings, which from art perspective is unique and refreshing, but for me sometimes I couldn't tell what was a real painting and what was an artist or CGI alteration of it. I wish they would show the actual art as is, unaltered.

People who decide to watch this movie should be aware of the nudity imagery that this documentary contain, but if you are in learning mode, history and art, you'll find a beautifully made movie and a truly deep life lesson. This movie is absolutely a must for art students and people that have a thirst for knowledge.

Exact score: 77 / 100.

Watched this at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

Frida Kahlo is one of the most interesting painters as he background and history is pretty strange yet interesting to learn about. This documentary does an wonderful job on presenting the life of Frida with strong direction, good dialogue read from the excerpts of her diaries that lets us go into the mind of Frida, and strong visual presentations throughout. Filmmaker Carla Gutierrez presents a good insight of Frida Kahlo with interesting presentation choices, structures and documentary vibes throughout which I found to be purposeful and insightful.

I have known about Frida when I was in art classes as a kid and I had seen the feature film about her but this documentary provided some new aspects and ideas about what made her special that I didn't know about. The narration felt poetic and the uses of sound designs and music are really compelling that helps to add the feel to the documentary.

Overall really good.