Frida

Her life was not a tragedy but we cant say it as a happy ending either. She was indeed a feisty and courageous woman and had left her influence on 20th century, she paid a tremendeous value for it. Whenever I think of her, I strongly feel that "Unless you get something larger than life, You cant give justice to life.."

Frida... Frida Kahlo.. The mexican painter, a truely revolutionary and one of the influencial women of 20th century. I recently came across a movie 'Frida' starring Salma Hayek in main role directed by Julie Tymour and I watched that movie again and again for about 4 times. Though movie has some flaws and drawbacks due to limitation of being a movie, it cant get out of your mind easily. What makes us overlook all these flaws is the fascinating personality of Frida, her continuous struggel in various phases of her life.

I went through various critics and original information about Frida after watching the movie and I could find much more ineresting facts about her. Some critics has said that Frida's life is about the struggle between her career and personal life, but I dont think its like that. She is about her internal struggle, her struggle with her physical disabilities and her struggle with her insatisfactory married life. All this reflected through her paintings. And she justified her view as, "I paint self portraits because I am the person I know best."

She was a born fighter. Her life was full of unfortunate events. She had got polio at the age of 5, followed by a fatal accident when she was just 18, which broke almost every important bone of her body (BTW, this scene is shown really geniously in the movie) and her badluck didnt stop here, she had a great disapointment with her married life with the well known muralist of that time, Diego Rivera, as he could not be loyal to her and one of the greatest pain of her life of being unable to have a child.. I often wonder which of these struggles was the toughest for her? Well, I think the struggle between a common man and an artist within is the most painful struggle for any artist.

Not every matter of her life is covered perfectly in the movie, but Salma Hayek has succeded in showing the genuine intensity of her pain. Well.. though Diego-Frida was not a happy, satisfied couple, personally I think, they were made for each other couple. Though, Diego was not loyal to her, nobody could have understood Frida well than him.. In fact he was the one who noticed her talent very first time and encouraged her to continue painting. He was the one who always appreciated Frida for plus points of her work. It was Diego who had told her to paint just because you cant live without painting. You paint till you die.. This is one of the impressive sentence of the movie.

She had just one exihibition of her paintings in whole life and got popularity many years after her death. But this wont stop anyone from getting fascinated with her work and struggle. She has indeed set an example for everyone.

Hmmm.. well.. After writing this much I have realised that there is much more to tell about her, much more to know.. Many things which I am unable to put in words.. What more am I supposed to say about a woman who wrote, " I hope the exit is joyful and I hope never to return..!"