Fridae

Lonely hearts out there flock to see this film. Well it would seem so as after hunting in vain the bus interchanges for pirated VCDs, I elevated myself by powers of sheer teleportation to catch the movie release of Frida. Popcorn tucked and seated anywhere but what my ticket designated, I noticed there were a quite a few solo beings littered throughout the cinema, and so it must be that a film that may land an Oscar into the furious, furry lap of Salma Hayek, this is a mainstream movie that does not enjoy the mainstream crowd. Did I also mention that there was this one cute denim skirted chick� and that I see you and� why are you alone? A film that's surely not for the frigid, in mind or in act, Frida should be devoured whether as groupies or alone.

Few would understand why a woman who was born to speak would do what Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (1907-1954) did, tolerating her man's infidelity as it kills her inside. But then few would turn a dilapidating sickness into a lifelong passion that would outlast love. A motor accident leaves the initially playful woman semi-crippled, as she is to strap a painful metal cast across her torso for the rest of her life. The transition was phenomenal, and it is during this period of confinement that she discovers her ability to translate her desires and later, demons, onto canvas. Broken everywhere that had a bone, her mouthing "Papa, Mama, look" before shakingly standing up from the wheelchair is the first of many incidents that mark Frida's strength as a fighter in life, almost as if the movie wants to streamline that life is about having a love, one love, and a passion, one passion. Uncannily enough, all the strong women I know and read of have two ingredients for strength: love for one or more, but one sole passion pursued throughout their living years.

While her more famous painter husband, Diego Rivera (Alfred Molina), sows his oats like wildfire, Frida's flings with both men and women seem frail attempts at establishing her sexuality. As much as she sashays her plentiful bosom amongst a bevy of women (for those hungry eyes out there: the entwined female bodies are picture perfect and Salma Hayek does a lusty job at bisexual outcry), perhaps the intended purpose is to play down her bisexual nuances as one gets the impression that she sleeps with women from not getting the love she needs from her highly-erectile husband. Which is a complete disregard of this side of a woman-painter whose passion for life and art proved she could very well have appreciated and wooed her own gender much more than reel wanted to portray. Which is a pity. Which is understandable. Which means there is definitely room to re-open Pandora's Box - that once again, the curve of creativity bends according to sexuality and inspiration blend. I have always wondered on this one, and many a time, concluded an answer as quickly as I changed my mind. But is the creative mind unaffectedly bisexual, and only when tampered (read restricted) becomes homosexual or at least experimental? This has been the question that haunts many of us.