bix171
07-27-2003, 12:16 AM
Salma Hayek may be the ostensible star of this biography of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo but director Julie Taymor is the real driving force, triumphantly displaying an astute eye that crams each frame with as much information as possible and boldly exposing the viewer to a variety of artistic experiments—the project seems as important to Taymor as it does to Hayek, whose sincere passion, as producer, for the subject is honorable and reverent. It’s a bit of an about-face for Taymor, whose feature debut, “Titus”, a graphic adaptation of Shakespeare’s “Titus Andronicus”, was filled with time-warps and sparse sets. Here, Taymor tells the story with simplicity, the use of some picturesque pastels that create an authoritative mise en scene, and some fun animated moments (she employs delightful dioramas to indicate shifts in settings and time; a garish hallucinatory sequence was created by the Quay Brothers, whose work has always been permeated with Kahlo’s influence) presented with an unabashed fervor that pays homage to Kahlo’s art while enhancing her own. Taymor works aggressively, approaching Kahlo in an almost masculine manner; as a result, she seems to respond better to the male aspects of the performances and though Hayek does a decent job as Kahlo (herself exhibiting many mannish tendencies), she’s acted off the screen by Alfred Molina, as husband/mentor Diego Rivera, with an exuberant yet smoothly modulated performance that shows up Hayek’s histrionics, heartfelt as they are. There are a number of interesting supporting performers, including Roger Rees (as Kahlo’s father), Valeria Golino, Geoffrey Rush and, briefly, Diego Luna (from “Y tu mama tambien”) as well as cameos from Ashley Judd, Antonio Banderas and Edward Norton as Nelson Rockefeller. Taymor shows that with this and “Titus” under her belt that she can deftly navigate between commercial and alternative narratives and that her natural creativity can only enhance any project she chooses to work on; hers is a rare and welcome talent indeed and it’s employed to great effect here.