‘Frida’ Review: Popular Mexican Painter Speaks for Herself in Doc Drawn From Kahlo’s Diaries
variety.comCarlos Aguilar The image of Frida Kahlo, the prominent Mexican painter of the early 20 century, is one of the most replicated and commercialized of any artist in the history of the world.
From T-shirts to houseware, merchandise of all sorts emblazoned with her face has turned Kahlo into a kitschy, mainstream, decontextualized emblem for Mexican identity.
It doesn’t help that the vast majority of her works are self-portraits. Onscreen, the Salma Hayek-starring Hollywood biopic from director Julie Taymor and Paul Leduc’s 1983’s Mexican-production “Frida Still Life” attempted to decipher the tehuana-clad iconoclast via scripted portrayals.
With all that cultural and media baggage on her shoulders, Carla Gutiérrez dares to construct a documentary using a unique approach to such an imposing subject.
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