Espero alegre la salida y espero no volver jamás

[sovay]

Best scene I've seen in a movie recently: in Julie Taymor's Frida (2002), when Kahlo glimpses over her shoulder in a barroom mirror a cowled figure whose face is the carved wooden mask of a calavera, the skulls who grin through the Day of the Dead; and then she turns and there is the same figure at a table behind her, only the face is human, with strong old bones and cropped silver hair and a voice like a dry riverbed, singing about La Llorona, the weeping woman. Yo soy como el chile verde, Llorona—picante pero sabroso. You cannot tell their gender: Death is not so simply classified. It's breathstopping. And then I came home and looked up the singer and discovered she was Chavela Vargas, who was born in 1919 and had an affair with the historical Frida and is still alive and performing as recently as 2006. And that is awesome.

(By which you may understand that I am home and once again observing Movie Night with Viking Zen. I don't plan to go anywhere that isn't within walking distance—at most, a subway—for at least a little while.)

Comments

[sovay]

Taymor is definitely one of my all-time favorite directors, and that on the basis of Titus and Across the Universe, for I have not yet seen Frida -- it's here, though, and reading your comment makes me think it's nearly time to.

I've only seen Titus once, as a double feature with Alex Cox's Revengers Tragedy* (2002), but I loved it. Across the Universe impressed me more for its staging and design than its story, but Frida works beautifully on the character level as well as the visual translation of Kahlo's art back onto her life; Salma Hayek and Alfred Molina are amazing.

(And as a small child, I was scarred by Fool's Fire (1992), with its puppets and stylized cruelty, but I'd love to see it again.)

I recently found out from my friend fringefaan, a much more devoted cineast than I and a fine writer, that Taymor's next film is to be The Tempest.

Yes. I wish she hadn't felt the need to alter genders, rather than simply cross-casting—if Cate Blanchett can be Dylan and Tilda Swinton Orlando, Helen Mirren can rock Prospero—but I am really looking forward to it. I've seen photographs of stage productions she's done of The Tempest; I'm curious if the film will resemble them at all.

* Best double bill ever. If you have not seen Revengers Tragedy, it stars Christopher Eccleston, Eddie Izzard, and Derek Jacobi, and takes place in post-apocalyptic Liverpool to the tune of Chumbawamba. It's awesome.