The life of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo is a story that has been told many times. Since her rediscovery in the 1980s, hundreds of books have been written about her, as well as several feature films that tell her story from different angles. And then there are the art exhibitions – dozens of them since 2020 alone.
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Kahlo’s story is so well documented and so thoroughly disseminated that you wonder if it’s even possible to find a new angle on the artist. This is the extensive task that longtime film editor and debut director Carla Gutiérrez sets herself in her new film about the artist, simply titled Frida.
Gutiérrez’s efforts to make Kahlo’s story feel fresh are twofold: She has painstakingly combed the artist’s diaries and other writings to let Kahlo tell her own story in her own words. Kahlo himself thus becomes the film’s most important narrative voice (in Fernanda Echevarría del Rivero’s moving performance). Kahlo’s world also becomes Frida’s main visual reference point. Frida also makes liberal use of archival footage from the period and from Kahlo’s own life – much of it is quite intimate and candid, showing a much more personal and diverse side of the iconic artist.
In her second innovation, Gutiérrez makes the bold choice to animate many of Kahlo’s paintings, turning them into a kind of ensemble actors in their own right. She said this was a choice she made with some trepidation. “It’s a tough decision when you’re dealing with an artist of Frida’s caliber, and how people think about her,” Gutiérrez said. “It’s like dealing with a story like Star Wars that has so many fans.”
Gutiérrez’s animations function as relatively small but meaningful interventions in the Mexican artist’s work, such as making an insect buzz, adding a pulse of motion to a canvas, increasing saturation, or even just slowly zooming in on a meaningful detail. . For example, in Kahlo’s painting The Broken Column, in which the artist’s destroyed spine is depicted as a Greek column with countless cracks in it, Gutiérrez intervened in two ways: she makes the column even more disjointed than in the original, and she makes it crumble. before our eyes. At other times, art is superimposed on images of Kahlo herself, creating personal connections between her life and her work. “We never added any external elements,” says Gutiérrez. “We wanted to add emotion, but we never wanted to transform its meaning.”
Overall, the effect of the animation is to amplify what the paintings have to say, drawing attention to the emotional resonance of certain details and building connections between the art and Kahlo’s life. “Being able to bring Frida and her art together in the film gave me a stronger sense of how her internal world, which you see in the paintings, is connected to moments in her life,” Gutiérrez said.
By highlighting these connections, the slow pace the film adopts with the art invites viewers to linger, perhaps to examine elements more closely and forge their own new relationship with the work. Gutiérrez said her goal with the animations was in part to emulate her own experience of taking time with Kahlo’s artwork. “There are works that I stay with for a long time and that I examine in detail,” she said. “I asked myself how I could bring that experience to the viewers. For me, animation was the solution, to guide viewers through the emotional story and emotional thread of a painting. Frida’s paintings often contain so much information and so much emotional content.”
By letting Kahlo tell her own story in her own words, Gutiérrez felt like she was taking her away from the iconic Frida whose ocular gaze looks out over countless consumer items from coffee mugs to tote bags. “I was able to get very close to the structure of her personality,” she told me. “Through this process I was able to really hear from her, connect with her voice.” This is one of the refreshing things about Frida. The narrative voice that Gutiérrez has reconstructed from her papers appears multiple and varied. At times, Kahlo’s loneliness and vulnerability is palpable, as when she laments how little time she gets with her husband, Diego Rivera, while the couple lives in the US, because he is always painting or pursuing his many businesses. “Hearing her talk about her own vulnerability, it takes her out of this iconic place,” Gutiérrez said. “She was a messy woman, a woman who needed a lot of attention.”
At other times, Kahlo’s voice is coy and seductive, as when she begins her famous affair with the Soviet dissident Leon Trotsky (alongside his assistant) – she declares: “it’s good to have sex even if you’re not in love. These versions of Kahlo are joined by others such as the challenging questioner of gender norms, a curious Kahlo exploring her sexuality, and an outspoken Kahlo who laughs shyly as she sketches outside. And as a result, all her words are often pleasantly sharp. “I really enjoyed hearing her sharp tongue,” Gutiérrez laughed.
The Kahlo here is decidedly earthy and sour, conversant with irony, lively in her appetite, but also a deeply sensitive being who clung to art as a means of coping with the struggles of a very painful life. It is not so much a portrait of Kahlo traveling on a certain arc or encountering a certain fate, but rather a collection of memories that piece together a life for her. This helps Frida present the air of authenticity that surrounds Kahlo, undoubtedly one of the most important foundations of her global fanbase. “She was incredibly honest,” Gutiérrez said. “She attached importance to her own emotions and inner world, she made everyday feelings tangible for women. She made those things important. That is why it has such a wide resonance.”
Gutiérrez said that directing was both a nerve-wracking process and a relief for her. “I was very nervous about my decision to both direct and edit, but I think it worked out really well,” she said. She hinted that more projects are in the works, and that she would also like to take on directing and editing duties in the future. And as for Kahlo? This is a love letter to the legions of fans around the world. “It’s really special to know that it’s getting a worldwide release because she’s so loved everywhere,” she told me. “To be able to reach art lovers everywhere – what a gift, right?”