Frida - 4

This film is an autobiographical sketch of the life of Mexican artist Frida Kohler (pictures shown are Two Fridas and What Water Gave Me). The film does a good job of integrating Frida's art into the film. She survived a bus accident which lead to back problems and eventually to being confined to a wheelchair and then bed ridden until her death. She married fellow artist Diego Riviera, who was constantly cheating on her. She traveled with him to New York but made here way back home to Mexico where she remained the rest of her life. As a history this film is interesting and I learned a lot of things about these artist, that I had not previously heard of. But as a story it is sort of random. It is the job of the writers and directors to bring some coherence to the story which they seem set against. There are quite a few characters who are really underdeveloped which makes one wonder whether they were needed in the film in the first place. The main point of the film is to show how liberal/ahead-of-her-time she was in her politics and sexuality. Along with this is the subtle argument that film should be taken as seriously as the historical artist are.