I’ve been embarking on a new frontier in my self-journey. I’ve started to go through fertility treatments because my husband Matt and I want to try to have a biological child. I’m 41, and in a way, I feel it is exactly the right time in my life to get pregnant. It’s also scary as hell being at this age and knowing that a lot of my eggs have died off, but it’s something I’m ready for if it happens for us. Beyond the pain of a menstrual cycle, and my body’s reaction to anxiety and stress, this is something that I wasn’t sure was going to happen to me, until I met Matt. We’re at the beginning now, but I’ve gotten a lot of tests in the past few weeks, some of which have been painful, but I also just feel that it is part of being a woman, and by embracing it, I feel it’s enriching my existence.
Like my interview with Lea Glob about her documentary “Apolonia, Apolonia,” I was encouraged to see a woman onscreen in “Frida,” directed by Carla Gutiérrez, endure the pain of being a woman, and the challenges it brings. As it was for Lea, art was a refuge for Frida Kahlo. I may not think of myself as an artist, but I’m inspired by my daily work in elevating women and non-binary people in cinema, especially those who deal with the pains of being in a female body. Below, I share a clip from Season 2 of “Fleabag” that I feel accurately conveys that through a brilliant monologue delivered by Kristen Scott Thomas.
Carla Gutiérrez’ film “Frida” is an intimate story of one of the world’s most celebrated artists, Frida Kahlo. Her story is told through her own words from her illustrated diaries. The film is vibrant and emotive, just like her work. We first are introduced to colors and what they means to her, the yellows, the purples, the greens, and the reddish purples. All of these colors brings Mexico and the landscape Frida inhabits to life. Black and white videos and images are flushed with color, as if Frida has taken her paint brush into the frame. Carla’s editing enables us to see through Frida’s eyes. After working primarily in editing, “Frida” is Carla’s feature debut as director. In the past, she has edited female forward documentaries with the female power duo Julie Cohen and Betsy West (“RBG,” “Julia”). The film’s editing adds to the seamless beauty of telling the tale of this film. The film went on to win the Jonathan Oppenheim Editing Award: U.S. Documentary this past week at the Sundance 2024 Film Festival.
Intertwined with the visuals are Frida’s powerful words, “I inhabit a world of pain, and it no longer holds mystery.” This line came after she got in her tragic bus accident as a teenager when a medal rod struck right through her body, and she nearly died. And years later, after she married Diego Rivera, her miscarriage brought another source of pain. After her miscarriage, she begged to have the fetus, because she wanted to use it for her art. Diego Rivera told the people at the hospital to give it to her, because her way of dealing with pain is not as a normal person would handle it. She must absorb herself in the pain to really break through it, and express it through her painting. Frida would go on to say, “I paint because I need to.”
After Frida and Diego divorced, you saw a renaissance and a freedom in her work. Her most popular work became her self-portraits, because, in her own words, “I paint myself because I know myself best.” I believe her way of digging deeper into herself gives her the ability to endure through the pain. It is almost buddhist in the way that she handles the pain. I too try to adopt that mentality by looking at the pain and getting to know it intimately, rather than push it away. When we come to the end of Frida’s story, she is celebrated all over the world as a surrealist painter, yet she exclaims that she does not put herself in that category because she paints what’s real to her, not dreams. What makes Frida and her work original is its creative and beautiful interpretations of her reality.
You can watch “Frida” online now through the Sundance 2024 platform.
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