Frida

Frida (2002) starts Frida Kahlo's life at the bus crash she survived at eighteen. It broke her spine and she lived with pain for the rest of her life. The film does not use her paintings to illustrate biographical events but as a direct continuation of them: a scene turns into a canvas and the canvas begins to move. Julie Taymor directed. She came from theatre and staged The Lion King on Broadway, and the animated passages and painting transitions here come out of that. Salma Hayek plays Frida and spent years getting the film made; she is one of its producers. Alfred Molina plays Diego Rivera. In 2017 Hayek published a piece in The New York Times describing Harvey Weinstein's behaviour during the production, and her account of the pressure the film was made under has changed how it is read now. It won Oscars for Makeup and Original Score, the music by Elliot Goldenthal. Hayek was nominated for Best Actress. It runs 123 minutes. Good for: biographies of artists, visually daring filmmaking, and Mexico. Less good for: it skates over Kahlo's political life and her communist ties. Her relationship with Rivera sits at the centre of the narrative, and her own work is pushed into second place at times.