Frida

Frida is a dazzlingly handsome screen version of the life of the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, from the moment she is seriously injured in a traffic accident as a young student until she dies of the complications at only 47 years of age. In between, she is married to the painter and womaniser Diego Rivera, and to counterbalance his unrestrained infidelity she has affairs with both men and women. Another aspect of Frida's eventful life is her political commitment, which among other things brings with it a friendship and later an affair with the Communist Leon Trotsky.

Frida is not the first film about the free-spirited, steely and uncompromising artist, but it is the first film that fully manages to exploit the dramatic potential of Frida Kahlo's unusual life. The film is thus far from an anaemic and rather dull artist's biography. There is plenty of vigour in both the plot and the visuals. The visuals are in fact a chapter in themselves. They are a pure aesthetic delight, extremely well composed and full of bright contrasting colours, just like Kahlo's own vividly coloured paintings.

Normally it can be distracting when American actors adopt an exotic accent instead of speaking Mexican Spanish, but in Frida it does not seem conspicuous. The only objection one might have to this full-blooded drama is the running time, which is longer than is good for it.