“Hola Frida”: the life of the Mexican painter at children’s height

She faced the others’s gaze on her difference, followed her dreams and her thirst for freedom against everyone’s advice, showed mad resilience. Frida Kahlo is an icon, a reference figure for generations of women. It is this surprising and intense artist, thick eyebrows and jet hair, with always ultra-colored outfits, which inspired the cartoon “Hola Frida”, by Karine Vézina and André Kadi, in theaters this Wednesday, February 12.

This pretty feature film focuses on the childhood of the flamboyant Mexican artist, who disappeared seventy years ago. We meet her little girl, already mischievous and determined, in her magnificent property in Coyoacan, near Mexico City, surrounded by a loving family in the famous Casa Azul, the blue house, now transformed into a museum.

We navigate cheerfully in this joyful and hypersoudé clan between the laughter of her sister Cristina, her father Guillermo, photographer with fragile health, his Motherde mother, with a strong character. The hard blows are not eluded: the polio that affects Frida very young, his consequences. Then there is the bus accident that almost cost him his life. And which serves her as a click so that she embarks on painting, during her long months of convalescence, bedridden.

The two directors kept the joyful part

Since “Frida”, in 2003, with Salma Hayek in the main role, the cinema had not told the life of the painter, however very present in literature, the exhibitions. Immerse yourself in this story at a child’s height is a welcome idea, as the heroine is inspiring. From his colorful universe, filled with animals and flowers, the two directors kept the joyful part.

Sometimes the narration moves away from biography and allows itself to be welcome dreams, when the mind of the little girl escapes. She meets the figure of death, defies her. Imagine in the eagle, rising in the air. It takes a long time before getting used to the particular line of faces, silhouettes. Often, the drawing is done with fireworks. The image is an explosion of colors. We talk about self -confidence, a filial love too. A story of resilience dotted with poetry.