“At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can” – Frida
Frida is the biography of a resilient Mexican artist, who channels her curiosities and suffering into her paintings.

Jessica Ploumis reviews Frida (2002)

Directed by: Julie Taymor, Written by: Hayden Herrera (book) – Clancy Sigal (screenplay)

Frida Kahlo’s (Salma Hayek) troubles start at a young age, when she is skewered by a hand rail in a trolley accident.Yet while Frida is laid up in bed, she sketches and paints her every thought and wound – faceting a glaring externalization of the woman trapped in a broken body.

As time goes on and hospital bills stack higher, Frida realizes she needs to find a way to support herself – but are her paintings good enough to sell? She seeks out the advice of a great artist, Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina). Diego is well known for his paintings of “the people“, and for his incessant womanizing. With eyes wide open, Frida and Diego collide, and become wrapped up in a world of art, politics, and social revolution. The two artists fall madly in love, but it’s no smooth road ahead. Their marriage endures financial uncertainty, affairs, sickness, distance, and betrayal. Through all of this – Frida paints- and depicts her physical as well as her emotional deterioration on canvas. When asked how she feels about all of Diego’s indiscretions she responds, “Diego is who he is, and that is how I love him. I can’t love him for what he is not”. This rings true as the theme for the film. Throughout all of her tribulations Frida transitions from a state of numbingly constant pain, to lovely peace.

Jessica Ploumis reviews Frida (2002)

This film is a mixture of raw story line and formidable characters. Frida Kahlo is dark, and strong, and feminine, and angry, and bloody, and colorful. Which means – she is perfect. The bravery it takes to love blindly, and live wholly, and create constantly is one rarely heard of or depicted in film – especially when it comes to Latin women. Frida has one of the strongest and most unrelenting voices I’ve ever come in contact with in a film. And for that I say thank you.

Jessica Ploumis