Frida

It was only by chance that I came across this, but I was very excited to watch the moment I did. Why, you ask? Because I previously watched 2021's 'Velvet,' another collaboration between filmmaker Weiping Kaigen and actress Sophie Reinhart, and I found it to be an utterly flummoxing experience from which I could glean no rhyme or reason. Gawkily assembled, dubiously rendered, at once coming across with art film sensibilities but sometimes being so outrageous as to inspire laughter of disbelief, 'Velvet' was An Experience in which words like "good" or "bad" were entirely beside the point. Would 2022 follow-up 'Frida' offer any illumination as to Kaigen's mind? Would it be on par with its predecessor, better, worse? There was only one way to find out. I am equally confounded and delighted to report that this strange flick is more or less kith and kin with Kaigen's last oddity. Take that as you will.

One definite, genuine improvement is that Kaigen seems to have figured out how sound works, for this title does not have the same issues with imbalanced audio and ill-fitting voiceover in the way that 'Velvet' did. It's also worth observing that in some very, very small measure, there is a marginal sense of actual narrative this time around - something about a struggling artist, a self-described lesbian and seemingly a single mother, who engages in heterosexual sex work to help her get by. I say "seemingly" because a young girl is just sort of There, often just staring off into nothing like the title character; her presence is barely even acknowledged, and the young actor isn't even credited for her contribution. And I do mean "staring off into nothing," too, because in a runtime of just over one hour there are a good few scenes of Frida or Unnamed Daughter just gazing ruminatively into the distance. Moreover, the pacing is lax, the tone is limp, and there is very little that really happens.

There is nevertheless a sideways sort of substance here, a vague and slight meditation on the difficulties and malaise of modern life. Or something. On the one hand, that arguable substance is bolstered by the music, a score of slow, somber strings that come off as a somewhat more active variation on atmospheric drone. On the other hand, every other element here is sufficiently baffling that any possible value we might discern is subsumed. The dialogue is quizzical, and the scene writing just bizarre; Kaigen's direction stops just short of lackadaisical, uninvolved, and hands-off, and whatever it was the actors were trying to do (namely Reinhart), I don't think they achieved it. The shots and camerawork employed here regularly inspire perplexed reactions of "what?" 'Frida' can at least claim, to some tiny degree, a more sensible, comprehensible vision than 'Velvet,' but the filmmaker goes about it in such a laid-back, almost listless manner - as both writer and director - that the underlying ideas just rather flounder, like flotsam on the endless waters of the oceans. To whatever extent this picture bears more meaning, the art film construction remains, and that Kaigen's baffling choices flatten the infinitesimally greater meaning is worse than if there had been no substance at all.

I'm sure there's probably some viewer out there, someone who is not in any way associated with Kaigen or Reinhart, who sees something deeper and more significant in this feature. If so then I would like to offer my earnest congragulations, for I don't know how any such qualities could be extracted from this. Whatever it is we might read into this piece, and whatever it wanted to do, I don't think there was any decision made that served that purpose well. What we have is sixty-three minutes of a bit of female nudity and sexual content, fragments of "well, this could have been something," and a grand surfeit of "wow, Kaigen, that sure was a thing you did." I'm not saying that there's no possibility of enjoying this movie. What I am saying is that I don't know how I could ever offer it as a recommendation, for 'Frida' is a head-scratching tableau that just can't be bothered to specifically, intelligently, cogently Do Something (Anything At All, Please), and appreciating it as it exists is less about getting something from it and more about cheerfully exercising one's magnanimity to embrace the emptiness. If you think you can do that, then have at it.