Frida, Natureza Viva

Mexican-born director Paul Leduc's 1984 look at the life of prominent Latin American painter Frida Kahlo, Frida, Naturaleza Viva, is a slow-paced, quiet, and poetic film told through image and song rather than narrative plot. Vastly different from the Julie Traymore version of Frida of 2002, a standard biopic that focused on her tempestuous relationships, it is told through fragmentary accounts of different events in Frida Kahlo's life using impressionistic flashbacks from her deathbed. Ofelia Median is perfect as Frida, fully capturing her passion, fighting spirit, and sensuality as well as her painful self-absorption as revealed in her numerous self portraits and disturbing depictions of body parts.

The film depicts Frida's painful physical condition as the result of a bus accident when she was eighteen, her radical politics, bisexuality, miscarriage, the amputation of her leg, and her relationships with Diego Rivera, Leon Trotsky, and David Siquieros. It omits, however, any discussion of Rivera's womanizing, her divorce and remarriage, drug use and drinking, or her embrace of Stalinism in her later years. The end result is a hauntingly beautiful but incomplete portrait of a remarkable woman that makes you want to run to the nearest bookstore to learn more about her life and art.

The first thing you have to keep in mind is the format of the movie (8mm), and unfortunately the transfer to DVD was not made very well (the sound is pretty poor).

Nevertheless it is an interesting little movie that feels more like a surrealist's dream than a movie proper.

The dialogue is practically non-existent, thus you are left with small vignettes and images of relevant moments in the life of the artist, this may appear confusing if you don't know much about Frida and Diego, but if you do it is quite a poetic view abut their life together.

This is a movie made before Frida Khalo became a global feminist icon, conceived before all the hype generated by the rich and famous endorsing her and perhaps worth to watch just for this reason. reason.

Frida is the story of a woman who has an obsession with the physical image of herself. During the course of the movie she suffers from a profound identity crisis. The viewer will immediately notice the lack of dialogue in this film. The absence of dialogue represents the fact that communication for Frida is visual, not verbal. Her works of art speak for her as she communicates her pain and suffering through her paintings. Frida Kahlo's obsession with her physical abnormalities drives her to paint herself disfigured and in pain and directly reflects her personal suffering. The viewer realizes that art is life for Frida. Art was the way in which she communicated but unfortunately, the public does not seem to get a firm understanding of her pain nor the manner in which she expressed herself.

After watching Frida for my Spanish class, I learned a lot about the history of Frida and what exactly her trade mark meant. The movie displays the life of Frida and what she meant to the Mexican culture. Through her artwork, her life with her husband and her illness is all portrayed. The time period was during the depression and world wars. A lot of her life during the movie is seen through a mirror signifying her life was shattered in the end. A lot of Mexican culture is shown through her husband, Diego, as well as Frida. The lady who plays Frida in the movie looks exactly like the original and does an awesome job being Frida. This movie has a lot to offer. It demonstrates the Mexican history, culture, and life of others during this time period. I would recommend using this film to teach students about Frida as well as the culture and history of Mexico.

I bought this one while I was in Mexico, still trying to calm down the excitement over seeing Frida's house. I wouldn't compare it to the Hollywood version of Frida because, while both of them are excellent, Naturaleza viva adds something very authentic, very very Frida-like to the story. I agree, this movie is probably not for those not familiar with Frida's biography or the political events that took place during her lifetime. My favorite part was definitely the producer's ability to capture Frida's pain - the driving force of her entire existence. Ofelia Medina portrays Frida the way she was. Bold, unbreakable and, probably, somewhat insane. Like all artists. The movie is less dramatic than its Hollywood counterpart, but it succeeds in immortalizing Frida's personality. There's no need for a better-developed plot because, really, this film is about Frida the thinker, the artist, the lover. It's a window into her mind.