Review: Frida. Viva la Vida
Cinema, DVD & Download: Fida. Viva la Vida (2019)
It’s normally a plus to have someone review a film where that reviewer has a vast knowledge of the subject. However in the case of Frida. Viva la Vida – it’s a minus.
I’m not an expert on the queen of ex-votto, but found her some 45 years ago and have been interested ever since.
Oh my word, what a waste of amazing resources this film is. It’s fine as an introduction, but most people who like Kahlo do have more than a cursory knowledge of her life. Why? Because it’s so bloody interesting! Multiple affairs with men and women, sex with Leon Trotsky, and her love/obsession with frog-faced Diego Rivera who was incapable of being faithful despite being one of the most unattractive men in Mexico.
With access to the Frida Museum in Mexico City (her former family home) and what looks like unlimited access to her belongings, we get a Mexican dancer in a nightdress floating about running up stairs and being all dancey… when they could be showing us her bedroom.
Briefly narrated by Asia Argento who stares at the script above the camera with a shocked look on her face (probably because the camera is up her nose)?
Parts of it look pretty, but really – this is just terrible.
A total wasted opportunity, where a really interesting look at her life, illustrated with items from her home, could have given an insight into the woman. But no –they keep banging on about feminism.
Frida was not a feminist, it didn’t damn well exist then. She was woman who eventually became emancipated because she made money from her art.
But the worst thing of all is the biography itself. FILLED with GAPING holes, sweeping quickly over her sexuality and sexual affairs, concentrating solely on her accident and pain. In other words, they make her into a martyr, and I’m pretty sure Frida herself never saw herself like that and would be mightily pissed off with this documentary.
Horrible, avoid.
Review by Tina from a streaming link kindly supplied by Dazzler Media via The Warrior Agency.
