28 chances to check out ‘Frida’ doc
Frida Kahlo fans, you’re on the clock. A new documentary, “Frida: Viva la Vida,” is playing at the Cinema SF and Rialto Cinemas virtual cinemas for exactly one week — Wednesday, March 17, through Tuesday, March 23 — and the film’s distributor, BY Experience, is making the odd choice of livestreaming it four times a day, as opposed to just allowing you to stream it whenever you want during the oneweek window.
In addition, time is running out to see the the de Young Museum exhibit, “Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving,” which focuses on the artist and feminist icon’s personal effects — jewelry, clothing and prosthetics, among other items — that were recently discovered. The exhibit has been mostly closed during the pandemic, so with San Francisco museums now open, its run was extended through May 2.
Although director Giovanni Troilo makes some strange choices in his overproduced “Frida: Viva la Vida,” the documentary does provide a good framework of Kahlo’s art and her life — from her birth in 1907 in Coyoacán, Mexico City, to the bus accident in 1925 that would forever shape her life, to her stormy relationship with Diego Rivera to her death in 1954 at age 47. (Not much, however, about her brief move to San Francisco with Rivera in 1930.)
Troilo uses the bio as good context in exploring some of Kahlo’s bestknown work, including “My Nurse and I,” “Henry Ford Hospital,” “A Few Small Nips” and, of course, “The Two Fridas,” perhaps her most famous painting. Also, her belongings that had been locked away for 50 years, many of them on display at the de Young, are discussed by directors of Frida Kahlo museums in Mexico and other experts, such as the informative Hilda Trujillo Soto, director of the Frida Kahlo and Diego RiveraAnahuacalli Museum.
The experts and critics also give us a sense of Kahlo’s personality and influences and how they informed her art, including her obsession with indigenous Teotihuacán culture.
But where “Viva la Vida” goes wrong is Troilo’s inability at times to get out of his own way and simply tell Kahlo’s story. Troilo is Italian, and this is an Italianfinanced film, but the choice of Italian actress Asia Argento as our guide into all things Frida is a bizarre