Frida

One of Mexican cinema’s great triumphs of the 1980s, Paul Leduc’s unconventional film biography of Frida Kahlo drew wide praise for its success at capturing the spirit of an artist’s work rather than merely chronicling the biographical details of a life. (Julie Taymor’s splashy 2002 film Frida, with Salma Hayek in the lead, received a more mixed reception.) Ofelia Medina — bearing an uncanny resemblance to her subject — gives a powerful performance as the flamboyant Mexican painter, wife of the renowned muralist Diego Rivera, close friend of Leon Trotsky, and committed revolutionary. As she drifts in and out of consciousness on her deathbed, fragments of memories and dreams pass through her mind. These images — some haunting, some moving, some painful, some enchanting — gradually form a mosaic of her interior and exterior life. Every frame of this remarkable film exhibits a painterly sense of colour, light, and texture. Frida shared top honours at the 1985 Havana Film Festival, and won 8 Ariel Awards, Mexico’s equivalent of the Oscars. Leduc’s acclaimed and equally innovative Reed: Insurgent Mexico also screens in this retrospective. “Frida is an exceptional work of art” (Toronto I.F.F.). Colour, DVCAM video, in Spanish with English subtitles. 108 mins.